Does it matter what your child listens too?

This week a link to a newspaper article by Jeremy Eichler of the Boston Globe. Last week he phoned a number of researchers in music cognition asking for advice on what to play to his newborn son; he was wondering whether he could take advantage of the latest insights presented at the Music & Language Conference organized by Tufts University. The newspaper article reports on advice given by prominent cognitive scientists like Steven Pinker, Laurel Trainer and Glenn Schellenberg, but also mentions our work on musical competence and the role of exposure that is about to be published.

See Jeremy Eichler’s light-hearted personal report in the Boston Globe of his 'yearlong quest to grasp the infant musical mind' (or pdf).

Has it been 25 years already?

The Music & Language conference —seeing its second edition this year— is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's landmark book ‘A Generative Theory of Tonal Music’ (GTTM for short). An important book in the short history of music cognition that is widely cited, from computer science to experimental psychology.

As I wrote elsewhere (Honing, 2006), I believe that the fact that theories —such as GTTM—, with the ambition to formalize certain aspects of music theory, has led to a greater visibility of musicology at large, especially outside the humanities. The fact that a theory is presented in a formal way allows for an easier formulation of hypotheses, the making of precise predictions, and, consequently, the testing and evaluation of these. As such, it makes this style of music theory compelling to both computer scientists and experimental psychologists. This development is an important example of how a methodology (adapted from, and shared with the sciences) serves as a vehicle — a format for the transmission of ideas between science and the humanities— that turned out to be very influential.

However, it has to be noted that there are also examples that were less successful. For instance, theories on music that were developed in the sciences, such as Christopher Longuet-Higgins’ work in the 1970s. This research did not reach the music community in the way one would have expected, even though it is presented in a compelling and formalized form. Thus, the transmission of ideas in formalized form could well be primarily one-directional :-\

On Thursday night Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff’s both joined the stage and reflected on what happened then, in the period leading up to the publication of the book, the late 1970s. While both went their own ways since then, the memories radiated a close, and mutually inspiring relationship effectuated in meetings at kitchen tables and private homes. One more example that interdisciplinary and collaborative work can lead to important developments and changes in science.

Lerdahl, F., Jackendoff, R. (1983). A generative theory of tonal music. Cambridge: MIT Press

A fascination for music cognition?

This week a link to an episode of UvA's tv-series The Fascination. This episode is on music cognition, and is directed by Bob van Gijzel. Click here for the ten minute video with English subtitles.

Listen and learn?

This week Nature published a last in a series of nine essays on the topic of Science and Music, containing essays by Huron, Trainor, Patel and others (see also podcast). The last one was by John Sloboda, renowned for his excellent research in the psychology of music, music and emotion and a variety of educational issues in music. In his essay he stresses —like in his well-known article What makes a musician?— that talent for music is a myth, in the sense that it is not special but a 'talent' we all share. Listen and learn is one of the headings of the essay. Sloboda writes:

"One beneficial effect of the careful scientific probing of listeners' experiences is that it often demonstrates their hidden musical competence. Studies of encoding and memory reveal musical intelligence in people's recall errors: they tend to substitute a note or chord that serves a similar musical function. This shows that they have subconsciously internalized the rules of musical grammar. Other studies show that the ability to sing in tune can be dramatically improved by simple well-targeted feedback, suggesting that many abilities are already in place but are masked by the absence of one simple cognitive component."

More and more evidence is provided, by research teams in both Europe and North-America, that shows that responses of musically untrained listeners tend to be highly correlated with those of musically trained listeners (including our own Internet study on musical competence and the role of exposure that will be presented next week at the Music and Language conference organized by Tufts University in Boston). These studies suggest that musical competence can be improved (or altered) by mere exposure to music, without the help of explicit training. Listen and learn, indeed.

Sloboda, J. (2008). Science and Music: The ear of the beholder. Nature, 454(7200), 32-33. DOI: 10.1038/454032a

Is beat induction special? (Part 4)

Beat induction has been a recurring topic on this blog. The topic was also the focus at the opening symposium of the Neurosciences and Music Conference, currently being held in Montreal, Canada. Especially researchers like Jessica A. Grahn (Cognition and Brain Science Unit, Cambridge), Joel S. Snyder (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Ed W. Large (Florida Atlantic University) and John R. Iversen (Neursosciences Institute, San Diego) talked about different aspects of beat perception and synchonization in relation to the structure of the brain.

While there is quite some agreement that auditory rhythm processing is associated with movement and auditory brain areas, also some deeper brain areas were proposed as candidates. An elegant series of studies was presented by Joyce L. Chen (McGill University, Montreal) that went a step further in looking for patterns in how these brain areas might be interrelated. She could show (using a very nice design in which behavioral data informs and helps the analyses of brain imaging data) an intimate linkage between the auditory and premotor brain circuit, a link that was suggested to be “at the core of what links music, movement and language together”.

However, in how far beat induction is special –in the sense that it might be a uniquely human trait (see earlier blog)– is still under much discussion. Ed W. Large (Florida State University) mentioned in his talk yesterday that he is currently testing bonobo’s on having beat induction (Needless to say that he is optimistic on that, but the results will only be published later this year). This morning Aniruddh D. Patel (The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego) presented a poster with the first data of the ‘dancing cockatoo’ (mentioned in an earlier blog). Below a short compilation of some of the recordings that Patel’s group analyzed and presented here at the Neurosciences and Music conference (with the kind permission of Ani Patel):



The video is convincing in suggesting that the cockatoo seems to be really sensitive -at least in these fragments- to the tempo of the music and can be argued to really listen and able to pick up the induced beat. When looking at the actual measurements however, the story is less convincing. Five video’s where recorded, of which three had to be rejected because the experimenter might have moved along while the video was made. In the remaining two video’s ‘successful’ dancing on the beat was ranging between 2.5% to 20% of the trials (an episode of say one minute of dancing). Part of the problem, quite interesting from a methodological and statistical point of view, is how to show that all this is better than chance.

Patel, A.D., et al., . (2008). Investigating the human-specificity of synchronization to music. In: M. Adachi et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Music Perception and Cognition Conference (ICMPC10), Sapporo: Japan / Adelaide: Causal Productions.

Combining science and music in Montréal?

I’m about to leave for Montréal, Canada. Next week, at McGill University, the third Neurosciences and Music conference is held: four days of presentations on new research in music cognition and related fields, with presentations by well-known researchers like Steven Mithen, Isabelle Peretz, Sandra Trehub and others.

Ani Patel and colleagues will present their intriguing analyses of the ‘dancing cockatoo’ (see earlier blog), and our group will report on an exiting study we did on meter and syncopation with adults and newborns in collaboration with the Institute of Psychology in Budapest.

At about the same time there is the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal – a good second excuse to travel. I look forward to, for instance, the solo concert of Brad Melhdau. More next week in some extra blog entries.

P.S. See also discussion on Science and Music in Nature last month.

Patel, A.D. (2008). Science & Music: Talk of the tone. Nature, 453(7196), 726-727. DOI: 10.1038/453726a

'Mannen gevoeliger voor muziek': Populariserende wetenschap? [Dutch]

Vandaag verscheen er een persbericht (via ANP) met de titel 'Mannen gevoeliger voor muziek dan vrouwen' over (gesponsored) onderzoek naar de reactie van mannen en vrouwen op muziek. De geschreven pers pikte het bericht gretig op (zie overzicht; zo'n 900 hits als dit geschreven wordt).

Het onderzoek blijkt echter ‘vertrouwelijk’ en betaald door opdrachtgever Sony Ericsson: het onderzoeksrapport is niet in te zien (ik werd verwezen naar een PR medewerker van de telefoonfabrikant: "[dr Moxon] is not aloud [sic!] to give out all the research that has been done.").

Op de website is de missie van de onderzoeker te lezen: het verzorgen van "consultancy which gives you fast, highly-creative and psychologically-endorsed stories that grab the headlines". Met succes dus. ‘Free publicity’ voor een telefoonfabrikant die een nieuw mobieltje wil promoten. En de pers, de ANP voorop, loopt er met open ogen in.

Dr David Moxon kon mij evenmin vertellen of hij ooit eerder op dit gebied gepubliceerd had. Volgens hem bestaan er maar zeer weinig vergelijkbare studies. Er is echter legio literatuur over de cognitieve en fysiologische reacties op muziek te vinden. Google maar eens op namen als Krumhansl, Huron of Zatorre. Maar natuurlijk hebben zij niet het smeuïge resultaat dat Moxon vond.

Dit is populariserende wetenschap op z’n slechtst. Vandaar dat ik me verplicht voelde er een stukje over te schrijven.

Did the University of Amsterdam win?

No. Nevertheless, we had some great fun in preparing and presenting our ideas and plans. The University of Groningen and Maastricht won first and second prize in last night's finals of the Dutch Academic Year Prize. Congratulations to the teams of Peter Barthel and Eric Postma. Great work!

Below some fragments from our presentation and the jury response. We, unfortunately, did not get a prize, but nevertheless got many supportive reactions.*

A big thanks to Olivia Ladinig, Vivienne Aerts, Shane Burmania, and Leigh M. Smith for all their energy, and great ideas, they put in preparing for this event!

Jury response:



Impression of the finals (made by Bas Broertjes, Campus Tv):


Fragments of the presentation (part 1):


Fragments of the presentation (part 2):


For all video material of the finals, see here.

* I’m quite sure there will be alternative ways of realizing our plans promoting the field of music cognition (cf. AJP proposal)

Follow the Battle of the Universities live?

In Amsterdam this week?

Today an unrelated, yet passionate plug for my brother Yuri, who presents his new album Meet Your Demons at De Melkweg in Amsterdam this week.

If you like some (con)fusion, you might want to check it out. However, note that subtlety was never his merit ;-)