How is it that purely instrumental music can make us feel sad, or give us goosebumps? Why does a song get “stuck in your head” but a lecture doesn’t? What musical features cause confusion about the location of the downbeat (or where to tap your foot)? These are the kinds of questions we aim to answer in the field of music perception and cognition. Our lab conducts controlled behavioral experiments to try to untangle these complex problems.

Publications

• Arthur, C. (2018). "A Perceptual Study of Scale Degree Qualia in Context," Music Perception, 35(3): 295–314.
• Condit-Schultz, N. & Huron, D. (2017). "Word Intelligibility in Multi-Voice Singing: the Influence of Chorus Size," in Journal of Voice, 31(1): 121.e1–121.e8
• Arthur, C. & Huron, D. (2016). "The direct octaves rule: Testing a scene analysis interpretation," Musicae Scientiae, 20(4): 495–511
• Condit-Schultz, N. & Huron, D. (2015). "Catching the Lyrics: Intelligibility in Twelve Song Genres," Music Perception, 11(2): 470–483