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In mid 2006, our Victoria Sings program was scheduled for a large-scale evaluation. While negotiating the form this would take, the contracted experts stated that so little research had been done on the health impacts of group music-making that a significant portion of the project should be devoted to illustrating these effects.
Our Executive Officer, Jon Hawkes, demured; he opined (without really being absolutely sure) that there actually was a huge body of research, perhaps rendered invisible because it occurred across such a wide range of disciplines. His suggestion was rejected, the Victoria Sings evaluation didn't happen (but that's another story), and thus began this section of our website.
(A little diversion: turns out Jon isn't the only one who thinks the point has already been proved; the Arts and Health Working Group in the UK reached a similar conclusion a year later)
We had never really bothered much with research before - the benefits of making music together had always seemed totally obvious to us, and our top priority was to help get it happening more widely, rather than to be able explain why it was so important.
But the world has changed: it's increasingly difficult to raise the dosh without being able to provide 'the evidence'. So, for our own needs, and as an aid to others finding themselves in a similar position, we decided to bring together what we could find of the intersections between music-making and scientific investigation and analysis.
A year and a half later, we are more than a bit overwhelmed at the amount of material we've found (nearly 2,500 entries) - and at a bit of a loss about how to make it useful. Long lists are impressive but not very accessible. Our method has been to record the bare essentials and to link each item to a web source, but even so, it's not hard to imagine the onset of scrolling overload.
We've put our findings together into six sections:
| List name | No of items | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords | 96 | a hyperlinked glossary of concepts, disciplines, technologies and concerns that, we hope, can function as a navigational tool. |
| Individuals | 185 | people who have made a significant contribution to our understanding of music, what they do, where they work and how they can be reached. |
| Research institutions & associations | 160 | places where research is happening. |
| Periodicals & websites | 79 | the vehicles of dissemination. |
| Conferences | 55 | past and future talkfests. Papers presented at these gatherings are often the first indication of new directions. Nothing seems to focus the mind more than putting one's findings in front of one's peers. |
| Books, articles and reviews | 1,922 | the bibliography. |
We've confirmed the obvious: that scholars, scientists and researchers have been exploring music's biological, physiological and psychological status and effect for ever (Plato was among the early ones and it's never stopped). Of greatest interest to us is that these explorations offer insights into music's socialisation, educational and healthcare applications.
What did surprise us (but on reflection, shouldn't have) was the diversity of disciplines, both within and beyond music, in which serious scientific investigation of music has occurred. We've found ourselves steering a course through:
At which point, to avoid madness, we had to set ourselves some limits. We decided not to include material arising from the mass of research undertaken as to the social impact of community arts programs in general (this having been copiously documented elsewhere), and to avoid the area of social capital research (also well covered by others).
If all this remains overwhelming, you might like to browse just the most recent new research and reports that we've come across.
Or, you could check out the Music Council of Australia's Guide to Australian Research. This is a good place to find useful summaries and links.
This page contains 2,497 entries (most recently added to, 18/8/08) brought together by Community Music Victoria
Absolute pitch
Also known as perfect pitch, absolute pitch decribes the ability of a person to recognise and distinguish between specific tones without needing an external reference. Because there is increasing evidence that this capacity may be innate, it has become a key element in the exploration of cognition. See C. Aruffo's site on Music Cognition & Absolute Pitch for a useful rundown of writings on the topic.
Researchers include: Bergeson, Brown, Costa-Giomi, Cuddy, Deutsch, Levitin, Peretz, Pfordresher, Saffran, Sloboda, Trainor, Trehub, Zatorre.
Acoustics
The science of sound. In particular, the study of the physical properties and behaviour of sound waves. How these waves impact on our minds is refered to as psychoacoustics.
Adaptation
An adaptation is an innate (biologically determined) characteristic of an organism that gives it a direct survival advantage. The offsping of organisms with this advantage will naturally come to dominate the species (this is the evolutionary process at work - natural selection).
There are other innate qualities that evolutionists call exaptations or 'spandrels' (concepts coined by Stephen Jay Gould) - these are qualities that are accidental byproducts of adaptative characteristics offering no particular advantages.
There is constant debate about which capacities are adaptative and which are exaptative. Why? Apart from simply truth-seeking and advancing our understanding of ourselves, the answer, as regards music, is likely to have far-reaching repercussions for the development of public policy (in particular: education, health promotion and community development).
Steven Pinker's dismissal of music as 'auditory cheesecake' (a 'useless' byproduct of language) doesn't further the struggle for the recognition of the power, value (or necessity) of music in human development. Adaptation is a key issue in the field of evolutionary musicology. This entry includes a list of researchers who offer alternates to the 'useless byproduct' view of music.
Alzheimer's
Among the 22 articles (as at 10/2/08) on Alzheimer's and dementia included in our lit. search results, ample evidence can be found for the beneficial effects of music-making on patients, not simply on mood enhancement but also on memory and learning.
Researchers include: Bannan, Cohen, Cuddy, Odell-Miller, Sacks, & Schulkind.
Amusia
Amusia is the inability to recognise musical tones or to reproduce them. It can be congenital (present at birth) or acquired sometime later in life (as from brain damage). The study of this condition, particularly by neuroscientists, has significantly expanded our understanding of how music is processed in the brain (as with much research, studying the absence of a quality sheds light on its presence).
While the inability to recognise tunes is rare among humans, the inability to reproduce them is quite widespread (often what is meant by claiming tone deafness); this condition, more often than not, can be remedied. Researchers include: Cuddy, Hyde, Peretz, Pfordresher, Sloboda.
Analysis of music / music analysis
A discipline that, through breaking down a piece of music into small parts and examining their relationships, attempts to arrive at an understanding of how the piece works. The work of music analysts doesn't appear to have much bearing on the matters that are the focus of this collection of research; even so, we have noted the periodical, Music Analysis and the Society for Music Analysis.
Atonalia
A term that appears to have been coined by Peretz to describe the inability to distinguish tones. As amusia covers such a wide range of dysfunctions, perhaps this concept allows one to make a distinction between conditions displaying an absence of rhythmic sensibility and those in which an absence of pitch sensibility predominates.
Audio-Psycho-Phonology
The name that Tomatis gave to the methodology he developed to resolve learning problems.
Autism
(from wikipedia:) Autism is a brain development disorder that impairs social interaction and communication, and causes restricted and repetitive behavior, all starting before a child is three years old. This set of signs distinguishes autism from milder autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome.
From a music perspective autism is of interest from at least three perspectives:
Music's social function has been identified as a possibly useful capacity in treatment. Staum's essay for the Autistic Research Institue and Shore (2002) summmarise many of the music thrapy/autism connections.
People with autism often exhibit remarkable musical intelligence; this ranges from autistics whose primary interaction with their environment is through music to musical savants.
It has also been suggested that the lack of music-making opportunities for young children may be a contributing factor in the increasing incidence of autism.
Researchers include: Panksepp, Roth, Sacks, Thaut, Trevarthen & Wigram.
Biology of music / music biology
The scientific study of the relationships between living things and music. Sometimes called biomusicology, it covers such a huge range of specialisations (including cognition, physiology, medicine, education, psychology and evolution) that, apart from its use as a catchy conference title (see The Biological Foundations of Music), its most useful function may be simply to remind us that music actually has a biological basis. All of the researchers identified in the following material work from this premise.
Biomusic
Biomusic is a music form rooted in the sounds created or performed by living things (ie, not humans). The concept is sometimes extended to include sounds made by humans in a directly 'biological' way (excluding vocalising). For instance, music that is created by the brain waves of the composer can also be called biomusic as can music created by the human body without the use of tools or instruments that are not part of the body. Biomusic can be divided into two basic categories: music that is created solely by the animal (or in some cases, plant), and music that is based on animal noises but has been arranged by a human composer. In this spirit, Gray's Biomusic project is an exemplar. In the context of the origins of music, practitioners of biomusic are active in drawing parallels between human musics and the musics of those with whom we share the planet.
Biomusicology
The study of music from a biological point of view. The term was coined by Wallin. Music is an aspect of the behaviour of the human and possibly other species. As humans are living organisms, the scientific study of music is therefore part of biology, thus the "bio" in "biomusicology". It is envisaged as having three branches: evolutionary musicology, neuromusicology and comparative musicology.
Bipedalism
Standing, or moving (eg, by walking, running or hopping) on two appendages (typically legs, though it can also include hand walking). Even standing is an active process, requiring constant adjustment of balance (largely initiated through the inner ear).
There are scientists who argue that the physiological and cognitive changes associated with hominids becoming bipedal (eg, the 'dropping' of the larynx and the rhythmic complexities necessary for upright balance and movement) made song and dance possible. Indeed, the development of the human capacity for rhythm is a critical issue in many areas of the study of music. See the rhythm entry for some of the researchers.
Brain's reward system
There are nerve fibre pathways in and around the limbic system of the brain that scientists call the brain's pleasure, or reward, circuit or system. When these neurons are stimulated, we have what we call pleasurable feelings. The primary source of this activation is a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Other biochemicals such as oxytocin and endorphins are also involved in stimulating feelings of pleasure. Research (eg, papers by Blood and Zatorre in 1999 and 2001 along with Menon & Levitin in 2005) indicates that musicking releases the biochemicals that stimulate the brain's reward system. A possible conclusion is that this behaviour improves the survivability of the species. Whether this is so, and why, are big questions for the evolutionary musicologists.
Broca's area
A section of the human brain that is involved in language processing, speech production and comprehension. The concept of Broca's Area was originally produced to explain how speech production was inhibited in the deaf; now it is used to describe many anatomical aspects of psychological processing mechanisms and is known to be involved in aspects of music cognition. Neuroscientists with an interest in music processing are particularly interested in what goes in Broca's Area.
Cantometrics
(roughly speaking, "song measurements") is a method for relating the statistical analysis of the (primarily) sonic elements of traditional vocal music to the statistical analysis of sociological traits. Cantometrics thus attempts to relate musical organisation to social organisation by establishing correlations between, eg, vocal quality (such as tense or relaxed), tessitura, textual coherence (presence and percentage of vocables versus meaningful words), melodic contour, on the one hand, with class stratification, gender relations, and sexual mores on the other. Cantometrics was co-created by Victor Grauer and was first publicly proposed by Alan Lomax in 1959, who then launched a group project to implement his vision. In 1968 he published Folk Song Style and Culture, in which he claimed that, "for the first time, predictable and universal relationships have been established between the expressive and communication processes, on the one hand, and social structure and culture pattern, on the other."
Chills
Responses to music often include measurable bodily reactions such as goose bumps or shivers down the spine. In 1980, Avram Goldstein, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology at the Stanford School of Medicine (Thrills in response to music and other stimuli) first attempterd to measure and explain these responses thus beginning the hard science investigation of music and emotion. Researchers include: Altenmuller, Kopiez & Panksepp.
Cognition of music / music cognition
Music cognition is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mental processes that support musical behaviours (how we 'know' music), including perception, processing, comprehension, memory, attention, performance, and affect (see the Music Cognition Resource Center for extensive information). Originally arising in fields of psychoacoustics and sensation, cognitive theories of how people understand music more recently encompass neuroscience, music theory, palaeoarchaeology, computer science, philosophy, and linguistics. Much of the cognition debate focuses on the interplay of cultural and 'natural' influence. Cognoscenti include: Aiello, Ashley, Barrett, Bigand, Costa-Giomi, Cuddy, Deutsch, Friederici, Huron, Imberty, Jackendoff, Krumhansl, Levitin, McDermott, Parsons, Peretz, Rauscher, Schellenberg, Schulkind, Stevens, Tervaniemi, Tolbert, Trehub & Wong .
Cognitive science
(from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:) 'The interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology'. One could also call it the study of the relationship between the brain and the mind. That is, making connections between brain activity and our perception and interpretation of our environment. Music is of great significance to cognitive scientists because it produces measurable activity both in the brain and in other physiological areas. It also exhibits considerable overlaps and differences with language cognition (see Broca's area). Its effects on emotions, identity, memory, stress, motor functions, learning capacities make it of such interest that a sub-discipline, music cognition has emerged.
Community music therapy
An extension of music therapy about which Pavlicevic & Ansdell have written extensively. As a practice, it emerges from an appreciation that the social experience of musicking is as benefical as whatever can be achieved in one-on-one situations. In CMT circles, this awareness seems to have led to an emphasis on public performance, particularly in respect of developing self-confidence, identity and visibility on the part of participants, and recognition and respect on the part of surrounding communities. While recognising the validity of this application, we wonder about the potentially counter-productive impact of performance anxiety inherent in this approach. Nevertheless, CMT gives us a useful way of understanding musicking as a positive social process.
Comparative musicology
A former name for ethnomusicology, (which one could describe as music anthropology or ethnography) comparative musicology is currently enjoying a conceptual renaissance as arguments rage around the eurocentric perspective of much of the discipline. Nettl is one who eloquently illuminates the challenges involved in examining potentially universal issues through culturally specific lenses. In its new form, along with evolutionary musicology and neuromusicology, it makes up the discipline of biomusicology. Clayton nominates this topic as one of his research interests.
Contagious heterophony
Steven Brown's name for 'a possible evolutionary precursor of human music'. He sees heterophony ('pitch blending in which individuals generate similar musical lines but in which these lines are poorly synchronized') as predating polyphony and 'contagion' (one starts and 'group-wide vocalizing emerges through a sequential process of spreading') as being a neat way of describing how this activity 'might operate both psychologically and neurally'. As with musilanguage, Brown has come up with a fanastic (and brief) concept that will help us to think more clearly about this process we call music(king).
Cortical plasticity
Also known as neuroplasticity, brain plasticity or cortical re-mapping, this refers to the changes that occur in the organisation of the brain as a result of experience. A surprising consequence of cortical plasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience or brain damage/recovery. Researchers include: Brattico, Gaser, Pantev & Trainor.
Cortisol
The primary hormone product of the adrenal glands, cortisol's main function is to help restore homeostasis after a state of stress. Not unlike the way dopamine regulates the flow of serotonin in the brain so does cortisol regulate the presence of epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine. There is some research showing that music-making impacts on cortisol levels (see Beck et al and Kreutz et al).
Dance and music
Many cultures don't distinguish between these activities. As rhythm is such an integral part of both activities, and as the making of both are rooted in the motor functions of our bodies, it should come as no surprise that their evolutionary histories are deeply entwined. Western culture's tendency to endlessly separate everything into discrete categories has a downside - in this case, immobile singing. Within these notes, as a way of emphasing the physical actions upon which music-making is dependent, we refer to our subject as 'musicking'.
Researchers making a song and dance include: Brown, Bryant, Freeman, Gabrielsson, Hagen, Malloch, McNeil, Parsons, Stevens & Thaut.
Dementia
SeeAlzheimer's
Dopamine
A hormone and neurotransmitter. It is commonly associated with the brain's reward system, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities. Dopamine is released (particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area) by naturally rewarding activities such as food, sex, breast feeding (and music-making). Dopamine is therefore believed to provide a teaching signal to parts of the brain responsible for acquiring new behaviour.
Echo-muse-ecology
Feld's poetic reinterpretation of the intellectual underpinnings of ethnomusicology.
EEG
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a neuroimaging technique that measures electrical activity produced by the brain as recorded from electrodes placed on the scalp.
Emotion
There is a body of thinking in which language and music are viewed as parallel communication systems, the former being used for the transfer of information, the latter for the transfer of feelings and emotions. Debate continues, but what is undeniable is that humans' emotions are affected by music. Juslin and Sloboda's 2001 publication, Music and Emotion is a major text in which many of the key thinkers present their findings and conclusions (it is one of over 100 publications on the topic in our bibliography).
Researchers include: Baker, Balkwill, Brown, Bryant, Damasio, Dibben, Grewe, Hagen, Ilie (formerly Husain), Juslin, Koelsch, Kopiez, Kreutz, Panksepp, Peretz, Rickard, Scherer, Sloboda, Thompson & Trainor.
Emotional valence
A spectrum of emotions (eg: happy, sad; pleasant, unpleasant) across which scientific indicators and subjective descriptions correspond. This construct then allows the relationship between various stimuli and responses to be explored. It's a particularly interesting process when, as is so often the case with music, 'opposing' emotions occur simultaneously - see mixed feelings.
Endorphins
Are endogenous opioid biochemical compounds. They are polypeptides produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates, and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a sense of well-being. Scientists debate whether specific activities release measurable levels of endorphins. Much of the current data comes from animal models which may not be relevant to humans. The studies that do involve humans often measure endorphin plasma levels, which do not necessarily correlate with levels in the CNS. Other studies use a blanket opioid antagonist (usually naloxone) to indirectly measure the release of endorphins by observing the changes that occur when any endorphin activity that might be present is blocked.
Given that some of music's effects are very similar to endorphins, it is not unlikely that, just as with a number of other wellbeing associated neurotransmitters, endorphin levels are also affected by musicking.
Entrainment
Entrainment, in a biomusicological context, is the synchronisation of organisms to an external rhythm, usually produced by other organisms with whom they interact socially. Examples include firefly flashing, mosquito wing clapping as well as human music and dance. Many researchers see music's entrainment capacity as the key to its evolutionarily determined function, ie, its capacity to facilitate collaboration and thus more effective social behaviour. Rhythmists include: Benzon, Bispham, Bryant, Clayton, Hagen, Merker, Patel, Repp, Thompson, Trainor & Will.
Epinephrine
(commonly called adrenaline) is a hormone when carried in the blood and a neurotransmitter when it is released across a neuronal synapse. It is a "fight or flight" hormone, and plays a central role in short-term stress reaction. It is released from the adrenal glands when danger threatens or in an emergency. Such triggers may be threatening, exciting, or environmental stressor conditions such as high noise levels or bright light. When secreted into the bloodstream, it rapidly prepares the body for action in emergency situations. Although epinephrine appears not have any psychoactive effects, stress or arousal also releases norepinephrine in the brain. This has similar actions in the body, but is also psychoactive.
Stress and arousal perfectly describe the manifestations of performance anxiety which been demonstrated to involve increases in the levels of these biochemicals.
ERP
(from Wikipedia:) An event-related potential (ERP) is any measured brain response that is directly the result of a thought or perception. ERPs can be reliably measured using electroencephalography (EEG). Koelsch is among the researchers using ERP studies to investigate the neurological processes surrounding music.
Ethnomusicology
Originally known as comparative musicology, is cultural musicology or the study of music in its cultural context. Formed from the Greek words ethnos (nation) and mousike (music), it can be considered as the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd Titon has called it the study of "people making music". It is often thought of as a study of non-Western musics, but can include the study of Western music from an anthropological or sociological perspective. Bruno Nettl (1983) believes it is a product of Western thinking, proclaiming "ethnomusicology as western culture knows it is actually a western phenomenon." Nettl believes that there are limits to extraction of meaning from an indigenous culture's music due to perceptual distance of the Western observer from the culture. As well as the two noted above, other ethnos who've had visions of universal functions of music are Blacking, Clayton & Tolbert.
Eurhythmics
Is an approach to music education devised by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. It utilises the expression of physical movement and musical rhythms to reinforce the concepts which affect the student's performance and retention of musical basics. It is the expression of physical and musical rhythms and the basic laws affecting their performance. Through participation in simple games, exercises and improvisations the students learn to combine music and movement in order to develop rhythmic unity between the eye, ear, mind and body.
Evolutionary musicology
Along with neuromusicology and comparative musicology, one of the branches of biomusicology, promoted in the book The Origins of Music as an application of evolutionary psychology's metatheoretical approach to human music. Key researchers in the area include: Benzon, Brown, Cross, Dissanayake, Dunbar, Falk, Foley, Freeman, Huron, Imberty, McNeil, Merker, Miller, Mithen, Nettl & Trehub.
Evolutionary psychology
The study of how evolution has shaped the mind and behaviour - examining how mental processes and traits have developed through the process of natural selection. Music's function as an adaptative characteristic has become more clearly understood through researchers in this field including: Arbib, Bryant, Damasio, Dunbar, Fitch, Hagen, Hauser, Imberty, McDermott, Miller & Todd.
Flow
is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterised by a feeling of energised focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields not least, positive psychology. It offers an interesting balance to Antonovsky's 'state of coherence' concept that forms part of his theory of salutogenesis. Both can be seen as being enhanced by music-making's social bonding function.
fMRI
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) non-invasively measures and visually displays bloodflow response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging. Neuroscientists are finding that fMRI's capacity to show brain activity (ie 'function' - as distinct from MRI which can only show structure) is a useful way of observing what goes on in the brain during musicking.
Formulaic language
Wray's description of a formulaic sequence is: 'a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar'. This definition indicates that formulaic language may be a product of a particular kind of processing, that bypasses the procedure of assembling words out of morphemes, phrases out of words, and sentences out of phrases. Such a language, composed of holistic utterances, has obvious similarities to music. Indeed, although Wray's conception was originally designed to illuminate the way we acquire and use language today, Mithen saw it as a way of describing the music forms used by hominids in the pre-or proto-language period.
Group selection
In evolutionary biology, group selection refers to the idea that DNA codings can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the DNA coding's effect on the fitness of individuals within that group. In recent years, the limitations of earlier models of group selection have been addressed, and newer models suggest that selection may sometimes act above the gene level. Recently David Sloan Wilson and Elliot Sober have argued that the case against group selection has been overstated. They focus their argument on whether groups can have functional organisation in the same way individuals do and, consequently, if groups can also be "vehicles" for selection. For example, groups that cooperate better may have out-reproduced those which did not. Resurrected in this way, Wilson & Sober's new group selection is usually called multilevel selection theory. Although Richard Dawkins and fellow advocates of the gene-centered view of evolution remain unconvinced, Wilson & Sober's work has been part of a broad revival of interest in multilevel selection as an explanation for evolutionary phenomena.
The theories of music-making's function in the promotion of social bonding become central in the context of a group selection view of evolutionary development.
Health and wellbeing
A coverall phrase designed, it seems, to embrace every aspect of life; sometimes seen to signify physical health and mental wellbeing; at others, personal health and social wellbeing; and at others, conveying the understanding that 'health' is much more than just treating the sick.
Humans, in most cultures, have always recognised healing and well-making properties of musicking. Scientific music research is confirming many of these wisdoms as new understandings emerge from and impact on current health practices.
Since the founding fathers of the USA introduced the pursuit of happiness as a formal right, social scientists have been attempting to develop rational systems through which the achievement of this right could be evaluated. The World Health Organisation developed the concept of Quality of Life in the early nineties and this has been built upon by institutions such as the New Economics Foundation and The Australia Institute into 'Wellbeing Manifestos' that outline the conditions towards which we might strive. None (yet) identify social eating, singing and dancing as essential elements of a well society but it won't be long. Meanwhile, practitioners of salutogenesis and positive psychology continue to develop ways of thinking about health that take the idea beyond curing sickness.
Health promotion
Public programs to prevent illness and promote health have been around for yonks (the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health was established in 1876). Until relatively recently such programs have just been an ordinary part of 'public health' and/or 'primary care' programs. The Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 (a WHO international primary care conference) noted that people's health is affected by their social, economic and natural environments. The WHO sponsored Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion in 1986 set the stage for what has become an international network of health promotion agencies that includes VicHealth which has been CMV's major funding source. The function of group music-making in stimulating social connectedness is gaining increasing credibility in these circles as it is recognised that a sense of belonging is an essential component of health and wellbeing. At the leading edge of the art/health dialogue is the Sidney de Haan Research Centre where the research surrounding their music initiatives is producing great results.
Hmmmmm
An acronym for 'Holistic Manipulative Multi-Modal Musical Mimetic'; Mithen's acronym for what he proposes as neanderthal language. With thanks to Bispham, Mithen's concept can be summarised thus: Holistic - lacking compositional structure and combinatoriality; Manipulative - concerned with affecting the behaviour of others; Multi-Modal - involving voice and gesture; Musical - making use of rhythm and melody and involving synchronisation and turn-taking; and Mimetic - imitative and involving intentional representations. While Mithen implies that this language was a cul de sac (homo sapiens taking a different direction), it remains an interesting construct when considering the possible nature of a protolanguage.
Holistic utterances
Vocalisations that convey a complex message in the equivalent of a musical phrase - there being no connection between particular pieces of content and particular sections of the sound. Wray, with her concept of formulaic language, Mithen and his 'Hmmmmm', Brown's musilanguage, Arbib and Studdert-Kennedy (2000, 2003) imagine a protolanguage that is composed of holistic utterances. Most of these researchers note that this precursor to language as we know it today would have been recognisably musical; ergo, language emerged out of music.
However, as with most theories of this kind, the case isn't closed: there is a continuing chicken and egg debate - the holists see the development discrete sounds conveying discrete meanings emerging from holistic utterances; others see it the other way around.
Identity
Many researchers are convinced that music is fundamental to identity formation (both individual and social), ie, we reference music to tell ourseves who we are and music makes the markers on our journey of self-discovery and social positioning. Phrases like 'the Beatles generation' and the 'Jazz Age' are not meaningless. One of the key texts is by MacDonald, Hargreaves & Miell.
Researchers include: Barrett, Dibben, Hargreaves, Lamont, MacDonald, Magee, Miell, North & Trevarthen.
Infant directed speech
Speech directed toward infants and young children displays special characteristics, such as heightened pitch, exaggerated intonation, and increased repetition of words and clauses, that differs from the speech adults use with one another. Called baby talk, motherese, parentese, child-directed speech or infant directed speech (IDC), it is typical of fathers as well as mothers, nonparents as well as parents, and across diverse ages and socioeconomic groups. IDC has been documented in a variety of cultures and across a typologically diverse set of languages, including English, Japanese, Hausa (a Nigerian language), and sign language. Infants prefer IDC to adult-directed speech, and they benefit from such interaction. For example, by enhancing attention, IDC promotes infants' processing of speech. Likewise, IDC helps infants to analyse the structure of speech by highlighting boundaries between important units, such as words and clauses.
In that this language is essentially prosodic, that is, to all intents and purposes, a music rather than a language (and appears to be all but universal), it may be useful to cast IDC not only as a precursor to language in the development of individual humans but also in the evolution of humans.
Researchers include: Bergeson, Bryant, Fernald, Gordon, Lamont, Malloch, Rauscher, Saffran, Stige, Trainor, Trehub & Trevarthen.
Infant musicality
Understanding the capacities and learning paths of the young is important in itself and it also offers insights into the origins and neurological basis of human musicality. The ways that adults use musical forms to connect with infants is an important aspect of these studies, but being able to understand the function of music in the development of infants themselves has great value.
Researchers include: Bergeson, Bryant, Fernald, Gordon, Lamont, Malloch, Rauscher, Saffran, Schellenberg, Trainor, Trehub & Trevarthen.
Language and music
Putting these two concepts together creates the stage for one of the great chicken and egg debates among the evolutionists. There are many propositions, ranging from Pinker and his ilk who dismiss music as a decorative byproduct of the language capacity, through those who see the two as parallel communication systems with distinct functions (the former for information exchange, the latter for emotional exchange) to others who see language, as we know it today, as having grown out of a musical 'protolanguage'. Ongoing neuroscientific discoveries constantly expand our understanding of the overlaps and distinctions between the two in the brain, but the odds are that there will never be a definitive answer to which came first.
What is clear is that, when it comes to language acquisition, whether it be as a child, as the learner of a new language or in recovering from having lost language, music can be enormously helpful.
What is also clear is that, as a means of establishing a sense of connection, music has no peer, and if this is a fundamental function of language, then music ranks as at least an equal. Most of the researchers we've listed address one or more of the topics raised above.
Lesion studies
Thw scientific study of people with dysfunctions that follow specific brain damage. Apart from the fact that most research is aimed at improving our ability to ameliorate suffering and that there aren't all that many opportunities to study the healthy, neuroscientists learn heaps from examining the conditions of absence. The how, where and why of brain activity can be illuminated through corelating dysfunctions with patterns of brain activity/inactivity. Various brain injuries are followed by the loss or impairment of a range of musical capacities, and the neurological study of such conditons as amusia offer constant insights into biological processes of musicking.
MEG
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a neuroimaging technique used to measure the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain via extremely sensitive devices such as superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs).
Memes
Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined this term in 1976. He proposed that a meme constitutes a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block of culture or cultural evolution which spreads through diffusion propagating from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution. Clearly vast amounts of music fits this model; the question is, how much of musicality is genetically inherited? And for what purpose?
Memory
The relationship between music and memory is multifaceted: there are a range of cognitive issues - the areas of the brain where musical memories are stored, the process of retrieval (both in recognition and in capacity to reproduce) - what happens in the process of music recognition, how particular pieces of music stimulate associations, music as a mnemonic (particularly with children and as an aid to language learning). And that's just scratching the surface. Researchers include: Ashley, Brattico, Damasio, Deutsch, Krumhansl, Levitin, Palmer, Pfordresher, Rickard, Stevens, Trainor & Weinberger.
Mirror neurons
Discovered by Rizzolatti and Arbib, mirror neurons fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another animal (especially of the same species). Thus, the neurons "mirror" the behaviour of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and in some birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. Some scientists consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in the last decade, largely because of their possible role in allowing for the development of language (see the Mirror System Hypothesis at Arbib's USC Brain Project) and their possible function in the development of social behaviour.
Mixed feelings
One of the most remarkable things about music is its capacity to simultaneously induce contradictory emotions. It is not all uncommon for the makers of and listeners to a piece of music to experience joy and sadness, pain and ecstasy, anger and humour, grief and relief, at the same time. Phrases like bittersweet and achingly beautiful attempt to capture these essentially inexpressible combinations of emotion. The most recent article of which we are aware that deals with this phenomenon is Hunter, Schellenberg & Schimmack.
Mood
See emotion.
Motherese
Palaeoanthropologist Falk has applied this common word for infant directed speech to her concept of the 'melodious vocalisations' that were a 'protolanguage' developed in hominids along the path to language. Her identification of the prosodic and rhythmic elements of homonid motherese make it clear that she's really talking about music as the bedrock upon which language was built.
Mozart effect
The term was originally coined by Tomatis in 1991 to describe his observation that listening to Mozart improved the performance of many of his young patients across a range of tests. In 1993, research by Rauscher and Shaw appeared to corrorobate Tomatis's claims, suggesting that listening to Mozart's music temporarily enhanced performance on certain spatial-temporal reasoning tests. However the jury is still out: scientific opinion remains divided as to any meaningful connection between listening to Wolfgang and being brighter. Investigation continues. What is becoming more evident is that, whatever the impact is, making music produces more of it than simply listening to music.
MRI
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a neuroimaging process that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce high quality two- or three-dimensional images of brain structures without use of ionizing radiation (X-rays) or radioactive tracers. The problem with the original MRI technology was that while it provides a detailed assessment of the physical appearance, water content, and many kinds of subtle derangements of structure of the brain (such as inflammation or bleeding), it cannot provide information about the brain's metabolism (ie how actively it is functioning) at the time of imaging. Hence the new fMRI technology that does exactly that.
Multiple intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Howard Gardner. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on IQ testing, is far too limited. Instead, Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are: Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"), Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart"), Spatial intelligence ("picture smart"), Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart"), Musical intelligence ("music smart"), Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart"), Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart"), Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart"). His theories have profoundly influenced contemporary education practices.
Music therapy
Traditional appreciations of the healing power of music were not (quite) discarded with the Enlightenment's rejection of all things superstitious. In fact, the music therapy field contains some of the most exciting thinking about the function and origin of music, particularly in the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. It seems that in Scandinavia, music therapists have a credibility denied them in much of the rest of the world. Indeed, in most of the English-speaking world, music therapy energetically competes with community music as to which is the most marginalised and trivialised. However, with the rise of health promotion as public responsibility, community music therapy has become an integrative practice that is beginning to offer a way of understanding how to rationally apply recent understandings of music's functions to aspects of health and wellbeing.
Music therapy researchers include: Ansdell, Baker, Bunt, MacDonald, Magee, McFerran, Odell-Miller, Pavlicevic, Procter, Robertson, Ruud, Stige, Wigram, Kenny & Edwards.
Musical intelligence
One of eight "multiple intelligences" conceptualised by Gardner. In his 2005 essay, Multiple Lenses on The Mind, he describes musical intelligence as "the capacity to create, perform, and appreciate music. Some people call this a talent. That is fine, so long as you recognize that being good with words or with numbers is also a talent. What I cannot accept is that linguistic facility is deemed intelligence, while skill with music or with other persons is merely a talent". Underpinning his concept of this capacity (that many are convinced is innate in us all) is an appreciation that humans perceive and interact with their environment in many different ways, one of which is musical.
Musicking
Concept developed by Christopher Small: "And if musicking is action and not thing, a verb and not a noun, then we should look for its meaning not in those musical objects, those symphonies and concertos and operas, or even those melodies and songs, that we have been taught to regard as the repositories of musical meaning. You will understand that I'm not trying to deny the existence of those objects, which would be silly, or even to deny that they have meanings in themselves. What I am saying is that the fundamental nature, and thus the meaning, of music lies not in those objects but in the act of musicking. It lies in what people do. Musical objects have meaning only in so far as they contribute to the human activity which is musicking. Only by thinking in that manner can we hope to gain an understanding of its nature and of its function in human life."
Small's conception of musicking as process, not artefact led us to adopt the word with this extension: that, not least because music is made by physically creating and responding to rhythm, we use musicking as the name of our subject and see it as covering vocalisation, dance (rhythmic gesture), and the manipulation of tools with musical intent.
Musilanguage
A term coined by Steven Brown to describe a theory that music and language have a common ancestor (see also protolanguage). It is both a model of musical and linguistic evolution and a term coined to describe a certain stage in that evolution. Brown speculates that both music and human language have origins in a phenomenon he calls the "musilanguage" stage of evolution. This model represents the view that the structural features shared by music and language are not the results of mere chance parallelism, nor are they a function of one system emerging from the other-indeed, this model asserts that "music and language are seen as reciprocal specializations of a dual-natured referential emotive communicative precursor, whereby music emphasizes sound as emotive meaning and language emphasizes sound as referential meaning."
Neurobiology
Is the study of cells of the nervous system and the organisation of these cells into functional circuits that process information and mediate behavior. It is a subdiscipline of both biology and neuroscience. Neurobiology differs from neuroscience, a much broader field that is concerned with any scientific study of the nervous system. Neurobiology should also not be confused with other subdisciplines of neuroscience such as computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, biological psychiatry, neurology, and neuropsychology despite the overlap with these subdisciplines. Researchers include: Damasio, Freeman, Marler, Schlaug & Weinberger.
Neuroimaging
Neuroimaging covers the use of various techniques and technologies to either directly or indirectly measure and create images of the structure, function and pharmacology of the brain. Neuroscientists use technologies such as EEG, fMRI, MEG, MRI & PET to see inside our heads while the music plays (while we play music is a little more difficult).
Neuromusicology
Along with evolutionary musicology and comparitive musicology, one of the three branches of biomusicology. It describes the scientific study of the effects of music on the brain. Neuroscientists with a research interest in music include Altenmuller, Avanzini, Besson, Brattico, Brown, Damasio, Freeman, Friederici, Hyde, Koelsch, Kreutz, Magee, Marler, Merker, Overy, Palmer, Pantev, Parsons, Patel, Peretz, Sacks, Schlaug, Skoyles, Stevens, Tervaniemi, Thaut, Tramo, Trevarthen, Weinberger, Will, Wong & Zatorre.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the discipline of scientifically studying the nervous system, including the brain. Many neuroscience institutes have a strong music focus (see Research institutions & Associations on this page). We owe much of our understanding about the cognition, perception, processing and affect of music to neuroscience, along with being able to make more informed speculations as to its evolution and to more clearly understand its therapeutic capacities.
Neurotransmitters
Are biochemicals that naturally relay, amplify and modulate signals between a neuron and another cell. They include the monoamines, epinephrine, norepinephrine, along with dopamine and serotonin as well as oxytocin and the endorphins. Apart from the monoamines (associated with performance anxiety, all of these biochemicals are associated with feelings of well-being (the brain's reward system at work) and all have been measured as changing during musicking.
Oxytocin
A mammalian hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. In women, it is released in large amounts after distension of the cervix and vagina during labor, and after stimulation of the nipples. In the brain, oxytocin is involved in social recognition and bonding, and may be involved in the formation of generosity and trust. Popularly known as the cuddle chemical. Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin. Freeman was one the first to make the connection between oxytocin and music.
Palaeoanthropology
Literally, the study of really ancient humans; which means that anyone concerned with the origins of music has an interest in the field. A more precise description is the scientific study of the early members of the hominid family through their fossil remains. Mithen a, palaeoarchaeologist, has, with The Singing Neanderthals, produced a major palaeoanthropological text.
Palaeoarchaeology
The study of the earliest humans and their predecessors. As both 'palaeo' and 'archaeo' derive from concepts of ancientness, it means that the evidence being examined is really really old - indeed, fossilised. The difference between this and palaeoanthropology is difficult for us to see, but nevertheless the palaeo-ists are making profound contributions to our understanding of the origins of music . Researchers include: Gamble, Mithen & Morley.
Parkinson's
The link above is to material on music and Parkinson's from the Beth Abraham IMNF. The Director Tomaino and her friend Sacks have done significant research into the beneficial effects of musicking on parkinsonians. See also Thaut.
Perception of music / music perception
In this context, perception can be described as making meaning from sensory stimuli. In this case of music perception, fascinating questions arise: the most obvious 'meanings' of music are emotional - what is the balance between personally idiosyncratic, culturally determined and universal (unconcsiously arrived at) meanings? What meanings do we make and how do we make them and how much and what sort of 'training' is needed in order to appreciate the intended meanings of its makers? These questions engage those pondering music perception. They include: Aiello Clarke, Costa-Giomi, Cuddy, Deutsch, Dibben, Gjerdingen, Kreutz, Krumhansl, McDermott, Palmer, Parncutt, Patel, Pfordresher, Saffran, Schellenberg, Shannon, Sloboda, Stevens & Trehub.
Performance anxiety
The fear that may be experienced while performing or while preparing for and anticipating a performance. Performance anxiety, a subset of stress, is little different from general anxiety (see Carole Miller's website for illuminating stuff).
Its symptoms are cognitive, behavioural and physiological and are closely associated with the action of cortisol and epinephrine in the bloodstream and the brain. Music teachers (and professional musicians and singers) have spent centuries exploring ways of reducing performance anxiety because, even though it is recognised that these 'flight or fight' biochemicals sometimes allow us to do superhuman things, the stress levels are often overwhelming.
In terms of the social bonding potential of group music-making, it is quite possible that the biochemicals stimulated through public performance inhibit, if not drown out, the effects of the dopamine associated neurotransmitters (at least in the performers).
Researchers include: Kreutz & Rickard.
PET
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a neuroimaging process that measures and maps emissions from radioactively labeled metabolically active chemicals that have been injected into the bloodstream.
Polyphony
Is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). See Jordania who demonstrates that choral polyphony is not a manifestation of sophisticated European musical development (as is presumed by many musicologists) but rather is a world-wide traditional form of music-making that is likely to be in a direct line from the musical protolanguage that preceded the emergence of language as we now recognise it.
Positive psychology
The simplest description of positive psychology is the study of mental wellness rather than the study of mental illness. Thought of in this way, it has similarities to salutogenesis, in which the same distinction is made in relation to medicine generally. Both theories identify the absence of stress as the key to wellness. The key thinker whose work underpins positive psychology is Csikszentmihalyi. His concept of 'flow' as the mental state supporting mental wellness parallels Antonovsky's 'state of coherence'. Both concepts can be seen to emerge from the practice of musicking as envisaged by many evolutionary musicologists.
Prosody
In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Whatever meaning is communicated through these means (and it is usually more emotional than directly referential), it is being done musically rather than linguistically. Language takes on musical characteristics (or remembers its musical roots). This is particularly the case with infant directed speech and in tone-based languages such as Mandarin.
Protolanguage
Is a language that was the common ancestor of related languages that form a language family. If music predates language, then it may be the 'protolanguage' of language. See Wray and her concept, 'formulaic language', Brown's concept of musilanguage, Mithen's Hmmmmm and Bispham's socio-affective confluential communication.
Psychoacoustics
Is the study of subjective human perception of sounds. Alternatively, it can be described as the study of the psychological correlates of the physical parameters of acoustics. It's a word that's been around a long time (foreshadowing concepts like music perception and music cognition) that has lately taken on some currency in 'sonic healing' circles. Along with its new age garb, psychoacoustics continues to be a useful concept for many of the more hard-edged researchers, in that it expands the concepts of music cognition and perception into the wider sphere of sound in general. These include: Grewe, McDermott, Parncutt, Roederer & Shannon.
Psychophysiology
(from Wikipedia:) 'The branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes'. What's happening in our bodies when we're feeling that a way? To what extent are my psychological states influenced by the response of my physiology to external stimuli, like, for example, music? Researchers in this field have a lot to say about the connections between music and emotion. These researchers have written from a psychophysiological perspective: Besson, Jentschke, Koelsch, Kreutz & Krumhansl.
Rhythm
Almost as often as 'harmony', this musical concept is used to describe ideal states. The question whether the capacity to create and respond to musical rhythm is uniquely human and innate lies at the core of adaptative thinking and the study of evolutionary musicology. In particular, the entrainment phenomenon that occurs in musicking is of great interest to those wishing to understand the biological function socially creating and responding to periodic pulses.
Researchers include: Bispham, Mithen, Patel, Repp & Trevarthen.
The rhythmical nature of music is at the core of many of its therapeutic applications. A good example is its use in managing Parkinson's.
Salutogenesis
Is an alternative medicine concept that focuses on factors that support human health and wellbeing rather than on factors that cause disease. The term comes from the Latin 'salus' = health and the Greek 'genesis' = origin. It was first used by Aaron Antonovsky in 1979, who studied the influence of a variety of sources of stress on health and was able to show that relatively unstressed people had much more resistance to illness than those who were more stressed. Antonovsky argued that the experience of wellbeing constitutes a Sense of Coherence (SOC). Though modern medicine has increasingly come to ask about the origin of illness, Antonovsky suggested that an equally important question to pose is: "what is the origin of health?"
Antonovsky's SOC has complementarities with Flow, a concept developed at around the same time, that posits an internal integration that mirrors Antonovsky's more social context. Both could be seen to be describing a state enhanced by music-making's social bonding function.
Savants
See musical savants.
Secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA)
A protein considered as the body's first line of defence against bacterial infections of the upper respiratory pathway. A number of studies show that its presence is increased through group singing (Beck et al, Kuhn, Kroetz et al)
Serotonin
Serotonin (5-hydrozytryptamine or 5-HT) is a neurotransmitter synthesised in neurons in the central nervous system and cells in the gastrointestinal tract of animals including humans. Low levels of serotonin may be associated with several conditions, including increases in aggressive and angry behaviours, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive, bipolar and anxiety disorders. Fost, among others, has linked rises in serotonin levels to enhanced capacity to socially bond, and there are indications that music-making plays an important function in facilitating the biochemical conditions for this to occur (eg, see Evers).
Social behaviour
It's obvious that music-making is a social behaviour: there's a heap of sociological and historical material attesting to music's function as a facilitator, solidifier and signifier of social development. Perhaps because this function is so clear, a body of theory has emerged that proposes that music-making's biologically determined function was/is to facilitate hominid social cohesion beyond the narrow boundaries of kin. Also, many of those that favour an evolutionary theory that includes the idea of group selection see music's adaptative development as critical. Researchers with an an interest in exploring the evolutionary basis of music's socialising function include: Aiello, Benzon, Brown, Cross, Dunbar, Freeman, Gamble, Hagen, Huron, Silk & Tomasello.
Socio-affective confluential communication
Bispham's suggestion as a functional description of music. It concisely includes music's social dimension, its emotional power, and the simultaneous activation of both our expressive and receptive organs. Some other researchers whose work is heading in the same direction include: Benzon, Brown, Cross & Merker.
Sociology of music / music sociology
The study of: music's function in social life (historical and contemporary); the social structures involved in the production and consumption of music; the uses to which music is/has been put in society; music's function as a medium for socio-political and cultural development and change; music's biological function as facilitator of social behaviour; music's function through infant, child and adolescent social development. While music sociology is itself a subset of musicology, it is clearly a huge field: musicking is a ubiquitous social activity and can be viewed from a myriad of perspectives. The more we know about the ways music is and has been applied in societies (eg, Amandla and The Singing Revolution), the better may we be able to understand its biological function.And on the way, one comes across gems like Marcus's Lipstick Traces.
Researchers with a sociological bent include: DeNora, Batt-Rawden, Cross, Hargreaves, Miell, North, Procter & Stige.
Sonic healing
The idea that sound vibrations are benefical is as old as it is new. From Tibetan mantras to Tomatis, humans have always perceived a positive connection between health and the buzz. While music therapy tends to take a medical approach (the cure or alleviation of ailments), there are scores of new age music/health phenomena that, through synthesising ancient insights with contemporary neuroscience, have developed solid practices for achieving and maintaining wellbeing through musicking.
There are philosophies that see the function of sonics in our existence going far beyond wellbeing. Berendt's 'The World Is Sound' goes the whole hog. Finding common cause between Hinduism and modern physics, he demonstrates that vibration is all.
Stress
(from wikipedia:) 'Stress is the condition that results when person-environment transactions lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy, whether real or not, between the demands of a situation and the resources of the person's biological, psychological or social systems'. Proponents of salutogenesis and positive psychology view the absence of stress as the prime factor in wellness, physical and mental. Beyond the considerable research demonstrating the immediate and relieving impact of music on individuals' stress levels (eg, Burns et al, Georgi et al & Hasegawa et al), there remains the function of musicking in helping to create the conditions in which stress does not figure: 'wellbeing', 'flow', 'sense of coherence'. These concepts all have a sense of connectedness as a key element - a sensation that is experienced and modelled through musicking. Musicking's adaptative function as a means of promoting social behaviour should be emerging as a key informant of social inclusion strategies (we wish!).
On a different, but related, tack, stresses that may emerge in music-making, sometimes called performance anxiety, are the subject of research, theory and therapy.
Therapy
See music therapy.
Tone deafness
See absolute pitch.
Rita Aiello
Visiting scholar at the New York University Psychology Department since 2001. Has served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the City University of New York, and has been a visiting professor at Universita' Degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza". Her research focuses on the perception and cognition of music.
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Frederick Matthias Alexander
(1869-1955) Tasmanian actor who invented the Alexander Technique that works through re-establishing the natural relationship between the head, the neck and the back - the "core" of the body - that supports the strength of the limbs and which provides the structural environment for breathing and for the internal organs. Alexander's development of the technique was inititiated as a solution to his mysterious vocal deterioration - what began as a vocal strengthening program soon morphed into a holistic health system.
Eckart Altenmuller
Head, Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians' Medicine, University of Music and Drama, Hannover. His research is on brain processing of music and motor learning in musicians. Presenting at the 2008 Neuroscience & Music III
Gary Ansdell
With Mercedes Pavlicevic, co-head of Research at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, London, and Research Fellow in Community Music Therapy at Sheffield University. He works as a clinician (currently in adult psychiatry), as well as a music therapy trainer and researcher.
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Aaron Antonovsky
(1923-1994) Sociologist and academician whose work emphasized the relationship between stress, health and well-being that he developed into a theory of health and illness that he termed salutogenesis. The major concept in this theory is that specific personal dispositions make individuals more resilient to the stressors they encounter in daily life. He identified these characteristics, that he claimed helped a person better cope (and remain health) by providing "a sense of coherence" (SOC) about life and the challenges one faces. His key works were Unraveling the mystery of health and Health, Stress and Coping
Michael A. Arbib
Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Neuroscience and Psychology and Director, USC Brain Project @ the University of Southern California. With Rizzolatti, the discoverer of mirror neurons. Current resarch interests: computational and cognitive neuroscience, mirror neurons and action recognition, brain mechanisms of language and their evolution, epistemology, neural networks, simulation, schema theory and neuroinformatics.
Richard Ashley
Associate Professor, Music Cognition/Music Theory in the Faculty of Music, Northwestern University. His research in music cognition focuses on expressive performance, musical communication, and long-term memory for music.
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Giuliano Avanzini
Director of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the National Neurological Institute Carlo Besta @ the University of Milan, Pioneer in examining changes in membrane channels in epileptogenesis for both ideopathic and temporal lobe epilepsies. He's been closely involved in the series of The Neurosciences and Music conferences (I, II, III)
Betty A. Bailey
Was PhD student in the Department of Music at the University of Sheffield under Jane Davidson focusing on the adaptive characteristics of group singing. Has published a series of useful papers on the topic (all of which she has been kind enough to send us hard copies of). See also Himelfarb article. Currently she's the Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Health Sector Council and the AIRS Geographic Liaison for Atlantic Canada.
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Felicity Baker
Co-ordinator of Music Therapy training at the University of Queensland. Former Assistant Professor in Music Therapy at Sogn og Fjordane College, Sandane, Norway and holds a Bachelor and Masters degree in music therapy from Melbourne University and a PhD from Aalborg University Denmark. Her primary interests are music therapy and neurological rehabilitation and in the effects of music on the mood changes within clinical patients.
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Laura-Lee Balkwill
Researcher at the Music Cognition Lab. Interests lie in the expression and recognition of emotion in music, particularly across cultures.
Nicholas Bannan
Collaborator of Steven Mithen's, previously at ICRME, recently took up position in UWA Music Faculty. Key interest is the means by which vocal potential can be released in singers of all ages and abilities; this has led to his Harmony Singing project, a new pedagogical system for developing aural sensitivity and creative potential through group singing. He has also worked with Alzheimer's patients on the potential of singing for retaining social communication between carers and people with dementia. He has also written extensively on the evolutionary origins of music. Organised and presented at the MLHE conference.
Margaret S. Barrett
Associate Professor & Deputy Head of School of Education, University of Tasmania. Her research work has been concerned with the investigation of the role of music and the arts in human cognition and social and cultural development. It has addressed problems in the areas of aesthetic decision-making, the meaning and value of the arts for young people, young children's musical thinking, young children's identity work in and through music, and creativity. Much of this research has involved the development of innovative arts-based inquiry methods. Head of the Arts, Culture and Community Research Group
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Kari Bjerke Batt-Rawden
Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, Akershus University College, and PhD student (under DeNora, in music and health promotion)/researcher with the Sociology of the Arts group at the University of Exeter. Sociologist with a salutogenetic approach to health and illness issues, she has developed several post-graduate studies in health promotion and published articles on the nature-culture-health interplay. She teaches students methods and strategies on how to initiate, motivate and co-ordinate nature and cultural activities in local communities.
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William L. Benzon
Association Director, World Development Endowment Foundation, New York. Comprehensive review of The Singing Neanderthals plus numerous articles on music and evolution.
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Tonya R. Bergeson
Assistant professor of otolaryngology and co-director of the Infant Language Lab in the Department of Otolaryngology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
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Mireille Besson
Director of Research, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la Mediterranee, Marseille. Her research interests are described in detail (in French) on the institute's website. They include the extent to which early musical training influences other perceptive and cognitive skills and, in particular, language perception and comprehension.
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Derek Bickerton
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawai'i. One of the major linguistic theorists of the twentieth century. Has a website promoting his latest book, an unused blog and no page at UH. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
Ian Biddle
Head of Music at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Associated with the International Centre for Music Studies. He is co-editing a book with Vanessa Knights (Department of Spanish, University of Newcastle) entitled Between the Global and the Local: World Musics and National Identities and his research interests include music and ideology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, music and gender, historiography and cultural theory.
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Emmanuel Bigand
Director of The Laboratory for Research on Learning and Development (LEAD) @ the University of Bourgogne, Dijon. Researcher in the field of music cognition interested in the differences of perception between musicians and nonmusicians.
John C. Bispham
PhD student working with Cross. The central focus of his work is an attempt to describe psychological and behavioural features of 'music' that distinguish it from other forms of animal and human communication - its putative 'design features'.
John Blacking
(1928-1990) One of the first, and still most important, ethnomusicologists to develop arguments for music as an innate capacity of humans. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen quotes JB more than anyone else. The Callaway Centre in Perth holds the John Blacking Collection.
Anne J. Blood
Instructor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Research involves using fMRI to examine the pathophysiology of dystonia and other neurological movement disorders.
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June Boyce-Tillman
Professor of Applied Music at the University of Winchester. Her research interests include musical composition, interdisciplinary performance practice, gender and intercultural issues in music, music and spirituality, music and healing, music education with particular reference to the role of improvisation and early childhood music education and assessment.
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Elvira Brattico
Researcher @ the Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki. Research interests include neural foundations of musical pitch, auditorymemory, neuroaesthetics of music and cortical plasticity.
Steven Brown
Cognitive neuroscientist working in the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (Vancouver), British Columbia. Developed the concepts of musilanguage and contagious heterophony. His research is devoted to analyzing the neural basis of human communication processes, including speech, music, gesture, dance, and emotion, with a focus on motor production, generativity and creativity in these areas. A major objective of his research program is to develop a general neuroscientific approach to the arts, what he calls neuroartsology. Co-editor of and contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
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Gregory A. Bryant
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Culture, Brain and Development at UCLA's Department of Psychology. His research interests include psycholinguistics (the role of prosody in understanding spontaneous speech), emotion, culture, and evolutionary psychology and cognitive science.
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Leslie Bunt
Music therapy practitioner, trainer, researcher and Professor in Music Therapy in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the University of the West of England.
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Patricia Shehan Campbell
Teaches at the School of Music, University of Washington, Seattle. Her interests include music in early and middle childhood, world musics in education and the use of movement as a pedagogical tool. Author of Teaching Music Globally 2004 et al.
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James S. Catterall
Professor, Urban Schooling, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Formation Studies. His research interests include arts and human development, arts and neuroscience / brain structure and function, evaluation of arts - integration programs, joining the visual and performance arts with academic subjects, issues generally related to education policy implementation and issues related to children at risk of school failure.
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Eric F. Clarke
Sometime James Rossiter Hoyle Professor of Music at Sheffield and, since October 2007, Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. Ex-Associate Director of the Centre for the History & Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM) for which he continues on the Board. In April 2009 he will become a Co-Investigator at the newly formed Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP). His research interests include the psychology of music (particularly performance, and the application of ecological theory to music perception and musical meaning), the semiotics of music, and music theory and aesthetics.
Martin Clayton
Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the Open University. His research interests include Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, rhythmic analysis, comparative musicology and early field recordings, British-Asian music and Western music in India.
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Stephen Clift
Professor of Health Education at Canterbury Christ Church University. His current interest is in the contributions of the arts and music to healthcare and health promotion. Together with Grenville Hancox, Professor of Music at Christ Church University, he has recently established the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health.
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Annabel J. Cohen
Director of the Auditory Perception & Music Cognition Research & Training Laboratory at the University of Prince Edward Island and Director of AIRS.
Gene Cohen
First Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University, where he also holds the positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He also co-founded the Creativity Discovery Corps whose mission is to identify and preserve the creative accomplishments and rich histories of under-recognised talented older adults. He is the Principal Investigator on the Creativity and Aging Study, a longitudinal resarch project whose findings have confirmed the profound impacts of group singing.
Nicholas Cook
Professorial Research Fellow in Music at Royal Holloway, where he directs the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). Musicologist, theorist and author.
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Eugenia Costa-Giomi
Associate Professor of Music and Human Learning, School of Music, University of Texas. Teaches research methods in music education, psychology of music, and musical development. Her research focuses on music perception and cognition during childhood, the nonmusical benefits of music instruction and the relationship between specific abilities and behaviours and musical achievement.
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Ian Cross
Director of the Centre for Music and Science, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge. Prolific author on the origin, evolution and function of music. Presented at the MLHE Conference.
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Director of the Quality of Life Research Centre and C.S. and D.J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Management at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Noted for his work in the study of happiness, creativity, subjective well-being, and fun, he is best known as the architect of the notion of 'flow'. He is the author of many books, articles and book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, describes him as the world's leading researcher in positive psychology.
Lola L. Cuddy
Psychology professor at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario with a research focus on music perception, cognition and performance. Director and founder of the Music Cognition Lab
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Simone Dalla Bella
Principal Investigator @ the Music Performance and Brain Lab, Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management, Warsaw.
Antonio R. Damasio
David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology and Neurology and Director of the USC College Brain and Creativity Institute. His research interests include the neurobiology of the mind, specifically, the understanding of the neural systems which subserve memory, language, emotion, and decision-making. His work raises connections between music, meaning and emotion from an evolutionary perspective.
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Jane W. Davidson
Collaborator and supervisor of Betty Bailey; recently taken up position in UWA Music Faculty. Former editor of Psychology of Music, she is currently Vice-president of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
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Irene Deliege
Founder of the Unite de Recherche en Psychologie de la Musique (URPM), Arts et Sciences de la Musique, Universite de Liege, Belgium. Currently based at the Centre de Recherche et de Formation musicales de Wallonie (CRFMW); she is the Permanent Secretary of ESCOM
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Tia DeNora
Professor of Sociology of Music and Director of Research in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Exeter. Her research interests include music sociology, sociology of music, arts sociology, and practical themes relating to these.
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Diana Deutsch
Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego. Conducts research on perception and memory for sounds, particularly music. She has discovered a number of musical illusions and paradoxes. She also explores ways in which we hold musical information in memory, and in which we relate the sounds of music and speech to each other. Much of her current research focuses on the question of absolute pitch - why some people possess it, and why it is so rare. She is Founding Editor of the journal Music Perception, and served as Founding President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC).
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Nicola Dibben
Lecturer in music at the University of Sheffield. She has published on textual analysis of popular music, gender and identity, critical and cultural theory, emotional responses to music and music perception.
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Steve Dillon
Senior lecturer in Music and Sound at Queensland University of Technology in the Faculty of Creative Industries. He is internationally recognised as a leading researcher in the field of positive effects of school and community music programs, particularly on at risk youth. He is the Director of the save to D.I.S.C. (Documenting Innovation in Sound Communities) research network, supervising a cohort of postgraduate students and collaborating with a team of international researchers. He is currently series editor for six books based on his Music, Meaning and Transformation research for Cambridge Scholars Press.
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Ellen Dissanayake
Seattle-based independent scholar and cultural anthropologist affiliated with the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington. Has written extensively on the origins of art and on mother-infant relationships. See articles: Crain, Dutton. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
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Robin Dunbar
Evolutionary psychologist specialising in primate behaviour. Head of the Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioural Ecology Research Group at Liverpool University. Proponent of group singing as a social cohesion adaptive behaviour.
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Jane Edwards
Course Director of the MA in Music Therapy program at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. She holds a Guest Professorship at the Institute for Music Therapy in the University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany, and is a By-Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK. Her past research has focused on the role of music therapy in meeting the needs of children who are hospitalised for injury or illness. She is currently researching the role of music therapy in addressing the needs of older adults who are receiving care in hospital.
Elliot W. Eisner
Sometime Lee Jacks Professor of Education and Professor of Art, School of Education, Stanford University and now a member of their 'Emeriti Faculty'. His research interests include arts education, curriculum studies and qualitative research methodology (identifying practical uses of critical qualitative methods from the arts in schools settings and teaching processes). He focuses on the development of aesthetic intelligence and on the use of methods from the arts to study and improve educational practice. Originally trained as a painter, his teaching and research centre around the ways in which schools might improve by using the processes of the arts in all their programs.
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Dean Falk
Chair of Anthropology at Florida State University. Developed the idea of melodious vocalisations ('motherese') being a key aspect of hominid child-rearing. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
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Steven Feld
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music at the University of New Mexico. Self-styled 'echo-muse-ecologist'.
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Anne Fernald
Director of the Center for Infant Studies at Stanford University. Has written on prosodic elements in infant communication.
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W. Tecumseh Fitch
Studies the evolution of cognition in animals and man, focusing on the evolution of communication in the School of Psychology at the University of St Andrews. Regular collaborator of Chomsky and Hauser. Presented at the MLHE Conference.
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Robert A. Foley
Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at Cambridge University. Balter quotes him as saying 'an adaptive model for music should be the default hypothesis'. Presented at the MLHE Conference.
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Joshua W. Fost
Innovative interdisciplinarian teaching at the intersection of science, philosophy, and art, with research programs in the neural basis of religious and aesthetic experience, and neurally-grounded philosophy of language. Strong parallel interest in the public understanding of science and critical thinking.
Walter J. Freeman
Professor of the Graduate School, Division of Neurobiology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley. Particularly interested in brain activity during decision-making. Has written on the function of music and dance as socialisation activities and was perhaps the first to make the connection between oxytocin release and music. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
Angela D. Friederici
Director of the Department of Neuropsychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. Massively prolific author on all aspects of the cognition of language and music.
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Alf Gabrielsson
Professor Emeritus in the Institute for Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden. Leads three research projects: Expressive Performance in Music Dance Speech and Body Language; Strong Experiences of Music; Multisensory Expressive Gesture Aplications.
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Clive Gamble
Archaeologist with a particular interest in our earliest origins and the evolution of human society. Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway and Director of 'Lucy to Language: the Archaeology of the Social Brain' (the British Academy Centenary Research Project). Presented at the MLHE Conference.
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Howard Gardner
John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. Best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. During the past twenty years, he and colleagues at Project Zero have been working on the design of performance-based assessments, education for understanding, and the use of multiple intelligences to achieve more personalised curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
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Christian Gaser
Department of Psychiatry, University of Jena. His research focuses on the development of methods for structural brain imaging and their application. Specific areas of interest include the investigation of structural brain plasticity and schizophrenia research.
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Thomas Geissmann
Director of the Gibbon Research Lab at the Anthropological Institute, University Zurich-Irchel, Switzerland. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
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Robert O. Gjerdingen
Professor of Music at The School of Music, Northwestern University. Author of numerous books, articles, and reviews in the fields of music theory, music perception, and 18th-century musical style. Former editor, Music Perception. Has served on the executive board of the Society for Music Theory and the editorial board of the Journal of the American Musicological Society. Was Vice President for Music Taxonomy at MoodLogic, Inc., an on-line music company in Silicon Valley, at the peak of the Internet revolution.
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Howard Goodall
UK 'National Singing Ambassador'
Edwin E. Gordon
Researcher, teacher, author, editor, and lecturer. Through extensive research, he has made major contributions in the study of music aptitudes, audiation, music learning theory, tonal and rhythm patterns, and music development in infants and very young children. He is the author of six highly regarded music aptitude tests, as well as numerous books, articles, and research monographs.
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Patricia M. Gray
Artistic Director and Pianist of National Musical Arts, for 21 seasons the resident ensemble at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, and the founder and Director of NMA's BioMusic Program.
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Amy B. Graziano
Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Historical Studies School of Music, Chapman University, Orange CA. Current research focuses on the history of music psychology.
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Oliver Grewe
Researcher at the Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians' Medicine, Hanover University of Music and Drama. Research interests include the relationship between music and emotion.
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Thomas C. Gunter
Senior Research Scientist with the Neurocognition of Language Working Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
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Edward H. Hagen
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. His research interests include evolutionary medical anthropology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary approaches to emotions, mental health, and addiction, life history approaches to child nutrition and development, bio-cultural perspectives on parental investment, applying models of primate sociality to humans, bioethnoarchaeology and the evolution of music.
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Susan Hallam
Head of Lifelong Education & International Development at the Institute of Education, London. Psychologist, musician and educationist, she has combined all three capacities in her interest in learning in music and the effects of music on behaviour and studying.
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Grenville Hancox
Co-director of the Sidney de Haan Centre for Arts and Health and Professor of Music at Canterbury Christ Church University. With a background in music education and performance his present research interests have developed from these areas and have resulted in a collaborative project with Stephen Clift concerned with the benefits of singing for well being and supporting his belief in music as an agent for social change.
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Erin E. Hannon
Director of the Auditory Cognition and Development Lab. Her research aims to understand the development of culture-specific and domain-specific knowledge of complex sound structures such as music and speech. Using cross-cultural comparisons, she examines how mechanisms underlying perception of music arise and change from infancy through adulthood as a result of experience in one's culture and cognitive developmental processes that are independent of culture. In current work she investigates (1) How perception of musical rhythm and meter is constrained during infancy and reorganized as a result of everyday exposure to music, (2) Whether or not there are critical period-like effects in acquisition of musical knowledge, (3) The development of intermodal perception in a musical context (e. g., perception of dancing and the development of synchronized movement to music), (4) Parallels between music and speech in rhythm perception and rule-learning, and (5) The role of music and singing in caretaking contexts.
David J. Hargreaves
Professor of Education, Froebel Research Fellow, and Director of the Centre for International Research on Creativity and Learning in Education (CIRCLE) in the School of Education, University of Roehampton. His main research and teaching interests are in developmental psychology and arts education, particularly music. He has published research on cognitive and social development in children and adolescents, creativity and psychological testing, development of gender roles, children's drawing, experimental aesthetics, computers in music education, development of musical preference and style sensitivity and peer collaboration in musical composition.
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Marc D. Hauser
Professor of Psychology and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Co-Director Mind, Brain & Behaviour Program and Director, Cognitive Evolution Laboratory. Regular collaborator of McDermott, Fitch and Chomsky. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
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Pam Heaton
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Research interests have been primarily concerned with cognitive processing, especially of musical information, in children with pervasive developmental disorders.
Lois Hetland
Associate Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art and a Research Associate at Project Zero. Her research in cognitive and developmental psychology focuses on issues of learning, teaching, and disciplinary understanding, with an emphasis in the arts.
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David Huron
Music cognition researcher and Head of the Cognitive & Systematic Musicology Laboratory, School of Music, Ohio State University. Strong advocate for the social bonding stream of music evolution. Delivered the 1999 Ernest Bloch lectures
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Krista L. Hyde
Post-doctoral research fellow at the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University. Was a PhD student (under Peretz) in the Psychology Department at Montreal University. Primary research interest is tone deafness.
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Gabriela Ilie (frmrly) Husain
Instructor in the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto in Scarborough. Her current research interests focus mainly on the topic of emotion, music and speech and their cognitive ramifications, including links between music and emotion, music and speech, and the effects of music and speech on non-musical, non-linguistic abilities. Previous research has dealt primarily with the role of acoustic properties shared by music and speech (e.g. rate, pitch height, intensity) on affect (valence, energy and tension arousal) and its subsequent effect on non-musical tasks (e.g. spatial tasks, reaction time, creativity tasks) as well as the effects of musical training on perceived prosody in speech.
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Michel Imberty
Professor of Psychology at the Universite de Paris X - Nanterre, where he is Director of the Centre of Research in Psychology and Musicology. Prolific author on the evolution and cognition of music. Contributor to The Origins of Music (Wallin et al).
Ray Jackendoff
Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University. His research interests are natural language semantics/conceptual structure, syntax and the syntax-semantics interface, the lexicon, architecture of the language faculty and other cognitive capacities, music cognition, social cognition and consciousness
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