According to a recent study by Lab42, over 45% of people listen to at least 10 hours of music every week. Furthermore, a Gallup poll indicates in 2003 that 54% of American households contain at least one musical instrument player. It is clear that music is a significant part of people's lives, but could listening and learning music serve any purpose beyond providing pleasure as an extracurricular hobby? Many have debated whether music is a valuable part of education. Currently, fewer than 50 percent of the nation's eighth graders are taught the arts in school, and students are not achieving at high levels in music and art-related activities, as reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Unfortunately, many people don't realize this fact or are aware of it but simply aren't bothered by it. For some, music training should simply be an optional activity and schools should not waste money incorporating it into the curriculum. On the other hand, supporters of music education point to the positive outcomes of music training as evidence that it should be included in school curricula. One such outcome is an improvement in cognitive abilities, brain-based abilities that humans need to perform any task, from the simplest to the most complex. Because listening to and learning music improves cognitive abilities, music education is a necessary component in everyone's educational curriculum, as cognitive reasoning is the foundation for successful critical thinking skills. One type of cognitive ability is spatio-temporal reasoning, the ability to visualize a spatial image. model and understand how the pieces fit into that space. In 1993, psychology professor at the University of California-Irvine, Dr. Frances Rauscher and her colleagues demonstrated...... middle of paper...... Center, 2011. Web. 05 December 2013. Neisser , Ulric. “Scores rising on intelligence tests.” Editorial. American scientist September-October 1997: n. page American scientist. American scientist. Network. March 29, 2014.Ostman, Sarah. “Social Sound Bytes: Listening and Sharing Music.” Market Research Blog Infographics Custom Research News Lab42. Lab42, 07 August 2012. Web. 03 February 2014. Rauscher FH, Shaw GL, Ky KN. Music and performance of spatial tasks. Nature1993;365: 611.Rauscher, FH, Shaw, GL, Levine, LJ, Wright, EL, Dennis, WR, & Newcomb, RL Musical training causes long-term improvement in preschool children's spatiotemporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 1997, vol. 19, page. 2-8.Schellenberg, EG (2005) Current directions in psychological science, vol. 14, no. 6, 317-320. Schellenberg, E. G. (2004). Music lessons improve IQ. Psychological science, 15, 511–514.