Is iMusic brain enhancer a hoax?

Answer 1

For those that don't know what iMusic is, visit www.getimusic.com

It's some sort of music which is said to be able to greatly enhance your brain performance, increasing your IQ, energize your body, or even increase your physical feats (muscle, endurance, injury reduction, etc) according to its release package.

On their website they say that their technology has been proven. And indeed they give tens of references of studies that have been done during the last few decades. Most of these are about some form of brainwave training and neurofeedback. None of those is specifically about iMusic. They have also done a few (I found three) studies themselves with very small test groups (nine to ten people per group) that showed clear results in favour of their product. But a) the study groups are too small to be significant, and b) significant details are not given in the research briefs. While in all tests one group was asked to listen to "enhanced" music, it is not clear whether the other group listened to the same music only that it was not "enhanced", or whether they listened to completely different music. I even sent an inquiry to Volition about these questions, but got no useful answer. No information beyond the nearly useless research briefs. There is no doubt that music has an effect on the brain. From the evidence provided on the iMusic website (assumed that there are no lies) it cannot be said whether the "enhancement" has an additional positive effect or not. Since they give a lot of references that are not directly related to the product, I assume that there has been no significant research directly related to iMusic. Since it is hardly possible to do any double blind testing, it will be hard to prove or disprove the effectiveness of iMusic as compared to a good choice of "normal" music. I'm convinced of one thing, though: it will work - to some extent - if you really believe in it.