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A blog on music cognition research.
Henkjan Honing
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- July 5, 2010
- 02:54 PM
- 2 views
Standardization cause of poor replicability?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In the last few years Web-based experiments have become an attractive alternative to lab-based experiments. Next to the advantages of versatility and the ecological validity of the results, Web-based experiments can potentially reach a much larger, more varied and intrinsically motivated participant pool. Especially in the domain of music perception and cognition it is important to probe a wide variety of participants, with different levels of training and cultural backgrounds.Nevertheless, to g........ Read more »
Richter, S., Garner, J., Auer, C., Kunert, J., & Würbel, H. (2010) Systematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments. Nature Methods, 7(3), 167-168. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth0310-167
Honing, H., & Reips, U.-D. (2008) Web-based versus lab-based studies: a response to Kendall (2008). Empirical Musicology Review, 3(2), 73-77. info:/
- July 4, 2010
- 11:52 AM
- 2 views
Standardization cause of poor reproducibility?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In the last few years Web-based experiments have become an attractive alternative to lab-based experiments. Next to the advantages of versatility and the ecological validity of the results, Web-based experiments can potentially reach a much larger, more varied and intrinsically motivated participant pool. Especially in the domain of music perception and cognition it is important to probe a wide variety of participants, with different levels of training and cultural backgrounds.Nevertheless, to ........ Read more »
Richter, S., Garner, J., & Würbel, H. (2009) Environmental standardization: cure or cause of poor reproducibility in animal experiments?. Nature Methods, 6(4), 257-261. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1312
Honing, H., & Reips, U.-D. (2008) Web-based versus lab-based studies: a response to Kendall (2008). Empirical Musicology Review, 3(2), 73-77. info:/
- June 11, 2010
- 02:54 PM
- 4 views
Complex nonlinguistic auditory processing?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Quite an impressive phrase, not? It was quoted in a recent interview with Ani Patel in the New York Times, and attributed to one of the most prominent researchers in the neuroscience of music:"Robert Zatorre never used the word music in a grant application. He knew it would get turned down automatically because people thought this was not scientific. Instead, he used terms like 'complex nonlinguistic auditory processing.' Luckily, in recent years, it’s become O.K. to say: I study music and the........ Read more »
Zatorre, R., & McGill, J. (2005) Music, the food of neuroscience?. Nature, 434(7031), 312-315. DOI: 10.1038/434312a
- May 14, 2010
- 08:10 AM
- 2 views
Can reading program notes reduce your enjoyment of music?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
The latest issue of Psychology of Music includes an interesting study by Lisa Margulis (University of Arkansas) who decided to investigate what the effects are of the widespread practice of including program notes for classical concerts on musical experience.In this study, the researchers presented people without formal musical training excerpts from Beethoven String Quartets prefaced by either a dramatic description, a structural description, or no description al all. Consequently, they were as........ Read more »
Margulis, E. (2010) When program notes don't help: Music descriptions and enjoyment. Psychology of Music. DOI: 10.1177/0305735609351921
- April 18, 2010
- 07:16 AM
- 1 view
Is beat induction innate or learned?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
This week a short entry with a selection of discussions related to the newborn study mentioned in last months entry.Discussion at ScienceNews by Bruce Bower. Discussion at Wired by Brandon Keim.Interview at WNYC Public Radio by John Schaefer: [soundfile]Report by Science Update by Bob Hirshon: [soundfile]Report by NewScientist by Hazel Muir, video by Sandrine Ceurstemont:For more media attention see Google news.Winkler, I., Haden, G., Ladinig, O., Sziller, I., & Honing, H. (2009). Newborn in........ Read more »
Winkler, I., Haden, G., Ladinig, O., Sziller, I., & Honing, H. (2009) Newborn infants detect the beat in music. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(7), 2468-2471. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0809035106
- April 8, 2010
- 01:07 PM
- 2 views
Anecdotal or real evidence?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
This week a short anecdotal yet inspiring video.However, students referred me to this and this video. So is it music or merely sound that stops the baby from crying? Time for a real experiment...Trehub, S. E. (2009). Music lessons from infants. In: Oxford handbook of music psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 229-234.... Read more »
Trehub, S. E. (2009) Music lessons from infants. Oxford handbook of music psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 229-234. info:/
- March 31, 2010
- 07:26 PM
- 5 views
Is music mere play?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Not too long ago I was called by the Dutch radio for a daily question on science, and was confronted with the question: Why do we like music? Since why-questions are generally almost impossible to answer, I was happy —just in time— to think of the idea of ‘music as play’. But because all of this went almost too quickly, I thought I would eloborate on this in a slightly more slower pace in this blog...The idea is that music, as a human phenomenon, can be seen as something that plays with ........ Read more »
WESSELING, H. (2002) From cultural historian to cultural critic: Johan Huizinga and the spirit of the 1930s. European Review, 10(04). DOI: 10.1017/S106279870200039X
- March 16, 2010
- 10:10 AM
- 5 views
Do infants prefer music over speech?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In this weeks online edition of PNAS Marcel Zentner and Tuomas Eerola report on a study in which they carried out two experiments with a total of 120 infants, aged between 5 and 24 months. The infants were exposed to various musical and rhythmic stimuli, including isochronous drumbeats. Control stimuli consisted of adult- and infant-directed speech. The researchers could show that infants engage significantly more in rhythmic movement to music, and other rhythmically regular sounds, than to spee........ Read more »
Zentner, M., & Eerola, T. (2010) Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1000121107
- March 10, 2010
- 05:18 AM
- 7 views
Are emotions in music universal?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
While there are plenty of theories on how music and emotion might be related (see Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008 for a overview), there is still little empirical support to decide on how far music and specific associated emotions - such as happiness, fear, sadness or anger - are merely a result of association and/or culturally determined, or in fact shared and a result of brain mechanisms that we all share. Last year Current Biology published an interesting study on the recognition of three basic em........ Read more »
Fritz, T., Jentschke, S., Gosselin, N., Sammler, D., Peretz, I., Turner, R., Friederici, A., & Koelsch, S. (2009) Universal Recognition of Three Basic Emotions in Music. Current Biology, 19(7), 573-576. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.02.058
Juslin, P., & Västfjäll, D. (2008) Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(05). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X08005293
- January 4, 2010
- 01:05 PM
- 6 views
Is beat induction special? (Part 7)
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
A recording of a lecture by dr Ani Patel from the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, including an exposé on why beat induction (and/or synchronizing to a beat) might be special to 'musical animals':Patel, A., Iversen, J., Bregman, M., & Schulz, I. (2009). Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.03.038... Read more »
Patel, A., Iversen, J., Bregman, M., & Schulz, I. (2009) Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.03.038
- December 6, 2009
- 08:08 AM
- 10 views
Crying of newborn babies: A sign of inborn musical skill?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Even the crying of newborn babies seems to be more musical than we think. This can be concluded from an interesting study that was published last month in Current Biology. German researchers were able to show that newborns don’t just cry randomly, but - when studying the audio signal of their crying - one can distinguish between French and German babies. The German babies - only three days old - cry in a downward fashion, their French contemporaries showed an increasing swelling of the cry and........ Read more »
Mampe, B., Friederici, A., Christophe, A., & Wermke, K. (2009) Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.064
- November 27, 2009
- 03:44 PM
- 25 views
Are auditory representations a result of temporal predictions?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Last month an interesting review was published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences arguing that ‘predictive representations of temporal regularities constitute the core of auditory objects in the brain.’ A possible consequence of this argument is that auditory sensory memory and (temporal) predictions are simply two sides of the same coin. The authors (among which István Winkler and Sue Denham that collaborated with our Amsterdam group in the EmCAP project; see earlier blogs), revi........ Read more »
Winkler, I., Denham, S., & Nelken, I. (2009) Modeling the auditory scene: predictive regularity representations and perceptual objects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(12), 532-540. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2009.09.003
- November 11, 2009
- 05:22 AM
- 5 views
Do newborns learn language or do they show musical skill?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
This week an interesting study appeared in Current Biology. The research suggests that newborns don’t just cry randomly, but that - when studying the audio signal of their crying - one can distinguish French crying from German crying babies. The German babies - only three days old - cry in a downward fashion, their French contemporaries showed an increasing swelling of the cry and stop abruptly (click on figure for two typical examples).Babies do hear about three months before they are born. T........ Read more »
Mampe, B., Friederici, A., Christophe, A., & Wermke, K. (2009) Newborns' Cry Melody Is Shaped by Their Native Language. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.064
- October 22, 2009
- 05:48 PM
- 7 views
Do we all have a talent for music?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
A simple 'yes', I believe.I do an attempt to explain this in a book that is about to be published in Dutch (English, and other languages, are planned for 2010/11).The evidence comes from researchers from all over the globe (England, France, Germany, Belgium, North-America, Canada, South America, etc.) .... standing on the shoulders of giants... it turned out to be a great view...H. Honing (2009). Iedereen is muzikaal: Wat we weten over het luisteren naar muziek. Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers. ISBN: ........ Read more »
H. Honing. (2009) Iedereen is muzikaal: Wat we weten over het luisteren naar muziek. Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers. info:/
- September 17, 2009
- 02:00 AM
- 8 views
Is beat induction special? (Part 6)
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
This week a brief update consisting of a short interview with Ani Patel (Senior Fellow at the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, US) at a conference workshop at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) talking about Snowball: the dancing cockatoo that gracefully helped boosting the visibility of research in the neuroscience and cognition of music.See earlier entries on beat induction.Honing, H., Ladinig, O., Háden, G., & Winkler, I. (2009). Is Beat Induction Innate or Learne........ Read more »
Honing, H., Ladinig, O., Háden, G., & Winkler, I. (2009) Is Beat Induction Innate or Learned?. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169(1), 93-96. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04761.x
- September 15, 2009
- 03:46 PM
- 8 views
New evidence for the Mozart effect?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Last week an interesting study was published (online) that provides evidence that music exposure facilitates neuroplasticity in rats. While I feel quite uncomfortable with using animals for these studies (especially if you read the explicit method sections of these kind of neurobiological papers :-\) , the results could well contribute to a better insight in how music might be functional in the neurohabilitation of humans.About sixty rats were divided in four groups, two of which had callosotomy........ Read more »
Amagdei, A., Balteş, F., Avram, J., & Miu, A. (2009) Perinatal exposure to music protects spatial memory against callosal lesions. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2009.08.017
- May 27, 2009
- 04:59 PM
- 190 views
A gene for music?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Last week a paper was published in PLoS-ONE suggesting a relation between AVPR1A-Haplotypes and musical creativity. A group of Finish researchers analyzed 19 families with a total of 343 family members on their musical aptitude —using the Seashore test and a test developed by one of the authors— and their DNA profiles. They were able to show an association between these and related genes and levels of musical creativity. The research contrasts earlier research with twins that suggested no s........ Read more »
Ukkola, L., Onkamo, P., Raijas, P., Karma, K., & Järvelä, I. (2009) Musical Aptitude Is Associated with AVPR1A-Haplotypes. PLoS ONE, 4(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005534
Coon, H., & Carey, G. (1989) Genetic and environmental determinants of musical ability in twins. Behavior Genetics, 19(2), 183-193. DOI: 10.1007/BF01065903
- May 5, 2009
- 02:24 PM
- 226 views
Is beat induction special? (Part 5)
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
This year several new insights were published on the phenomenon of beat induction.* Beat induction is cognitive skill that allows us to hear a regular pulse in music to which we can synchronize. It allows us to dance and make music together. Hence it is considered a skill that must have contributed to the origins of music. Without it, making music would be quite difficult.Most of these recent studies try to support (or falsify) the criteria that a cognitive skill allowing for music —such as be........ Read more »
Schachner, A., Brady, T., Pepperberg, I., & Hauser, M. (2009) Spontaneous Motor Entrainment to Music in Multiple Vocal Mimicking Species. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.03.061
Patel, A., Iversen, J., Bregman, M., & Schulz, I. (2009) Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.03.038
- April 19, 2009
- 04:56 PM
- 275 views
De do do do, de da da da?*
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
For a long time I thought of it as quite a peculiar phenomenon: grown-ups who, the moment they spot a baby, start talking in a curious dialect. A dialect that has unclear semantics, little or no grammar, and is full of exaggerated rhythmic and melodic diversions. Nevertheless, babies seem to love it. They react —cooing with pleasure—to melodies that are not unlike pop songs as ‘De do do do, de da da da’ of The Police or ‘La la la’ by Kylie Minoque. This babbling or, more formally, in........ Read more »
Henkjan Honing. (2008) De vergeten luisteraar [The Forgotten lLstener]. Boekman, 42-47. DOI: http://www.hum.uva.nl/mmm/papers/Honing-2008a.pdf
- March 29, 2009
- 05:52 PM
- 309 views
How well would you do as an expert?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
In the Netherlands (and I’m sure there are versions of it in the UK and the US as well) there is a weekly radio show containing a returning item in which music experts are asked to compare and judge two or three CD recordings of the same piece, without knowing who the musicians are. They have to guess the performers and describe why they do (or don’t) like that particular performance.How well would you do in such a test? The common hypothesis is that experts do this much better, e.g. under t........ Read more »
Honing, H., & Ladinig, O. (2009) Exposure influences expressive timing judgments in music. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35(1), 281-288. DOI: 10.1037/a0012732
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