Psyche Loui

I should add that this would not have happened without federal support from the National Science Foundation’s Career award which not only paid the participants, but also enabled the combined #psychology and #music major @northeasternu.bsky.social #psyscisky to grow #musicscience 🎹🧠

Kudos to the great @nickkathios.bsky.social & Ben Kubit for pushing this through, Ani Patel & Adam Tierney for bringing their 🪄, and the students for embarking on some publishable-quality work in my Music and the Brain course! #musicscience ftw 🙌

We think it’s because Laurel hearers are attend more to the low frequencies within speech, which also give rise to the song-like qualities of speech.
I also think it’s pretty cool to use these illusions as a way to understand individual differences in perception

a purple background with the word laurel in white ALT: a purple background with the word laurel in white

but curiously 3) ppl who heard Laurel instead of Yanny in the famous Laurel-Yanny illusion were more like to perceive the speech-to-song transition.

Musicality (A) and liking (B) ratings before and after repetition for song illusion and control stimuli for individuals with musical anhedonia and matched controls.

Turns out 1) everyone dislikes the repeated speech more after repetition, 2) ppl w/ musical anhedonia didn’t change their ratings more than controls

We set out asking whether people with musical anhedonia might experience the speech to song illusion differently, and whether the speech to song illusion might be accompanied by any changes in liking, not just in musicality ratings.

The speech to song illusion, famously started when Diana Deutsch played herself saying “sometimes behave so strangely” on loop, describes the curious #musicscience phenomenon where speech seems to turn into song when repeated.

Laurel–Yanny percept affects the speech-to-song illusion, but musical anhedonia does not - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Laurel–Yanny percept affects the speech-to-song illusion, but musical anhedonia does not

New paper 🚨! Our class project on Illusions of the Mind: Laurel vs. Yanny and Sometimes Behave So Strangely #speech2songillusion now out www.nature.com/articles/s41... with 3 undergrad, 2 postgrad, & 1 postdoc, & 3 PI authors #musicscience

a man is drinking a cup of spicy tea with the words got some spicy tea below him . Alt: a man is drinking a cup of spicy tea with the words got some spicy tea below him .

When the faculty “retreat” is on campus and basically a very long faculty meeting, and you’re told there’s food but please “bring a drink”

a cartoon of homer simpson sitting at a counter with the words this is not happening Alt: a cartoon of homer simpson sitting at a counter with the words this is not happening

Came here for five seconds of science news and am going right back to burying head in sand

Intersection of Music and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT)

Learned lots from the Berklee Music and Health Exchange Series today: Intersection of Music and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) college.berklee.edu/music-health...

New book chapter for forthcoming edited volume on subjectivity and improvisation, edited by my cool Italian hosts in Cremona!
“Neural Resonance and Semantic Leaps: Mapping the Intersubjective Terrain of Musical Improvisation”
osf.io/preprints/ps...

I read this aloud to @richardhwest.bsky.social and he says he now doesn’t believe the first part 😂😂😂🇸🇪🗄️💪

The Northern lights

Steamed arctic char with Vin Jaune sauce and trout roe

A group of scientists cross-country skiing, including one towing a toddler

Learned so much from a few days in Finland, including Helsinki and Lapland. Some truly unforgettable life experiences as well!

I should add that this work is funded in large part by taxpayers through NSF and NIH. Their support is crucial to our work towards innovative solutions to problems ranging from Alzheimer’s Disease to depression, anxiety, and ADHD. 💪

Man gestures in a very precise way while holding coffee, standing in front of a poster with brains on it

Also check out the precision gesturing by postdoc Ben Kubit on Earworms, Memory Consolidation, and Neural Replay for Recently Heard Music (very cool work he did @margulisa.bsky.social before joining my lab!)

@arun-asthagiri.bsky.social

Nick’s actual poster title is Finding the Self in Others' Music: Self and Other Representations in Prefrontal & Parietal Cortices During Music (two people discussing a poster with lots of brain images)

Last but certainly not the least, @nickkathios.bsky.social on Finding the Self in Others' Music: Self and Other
Representations in Theory of Mind Network During Music Listening

Colorful regions of interest functional connectivity plots

Here’s Kaye Han: Joint Connectivity between Sensorimotor and Auditory-Reward
Networks During Resting State and Music Listening

White matter and grey matter predictors of musical reward

Here’s Jinyu Wang: Brain Structural Predictors of Musical Reward Sensitivity in Older and Young Adults

Enthusiastic cognitive neuroscientist presenting poster on EEG and fMRI and behavioral testing on background music and its effects on sustained attention

Here’s Corinna Parrish: Effects of Theta-Band Amplitude Modulation on Sustained Attention

Smiling presenter on Synchronized Music and Rhythmic Visual Stimulation Increases Theta-Gamma Phase-Amplitude Coupling in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Thanks to organizers for a great #CNS2025! proud of my labbies for repping that happy intersection of #music & #cognitive #neuroscience #musicscience. Here’s Arun Asthagiri: Synchronized Music & Rhythmic Visual Stimulation Increases Theta-Gamma Phase-Amplitude Coupling in Mild Cognitive Impairment

#CNS2025 | Happening now
Fantastic talk given by Arun Asthagiri from @psycheloui.bsky.social lab @DataBlitzSession2, exploring whether multimodal （here in this context audiovisual） entrainment can be used to lift mild cognitive impairment as suggested by previous animal studies!

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠

sciencehomecoming.com

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Like the ASRS (ADHD self-report scale)? www.cambridge.org/core/journal... yes, we used it here www.nature.com/articles/s42... and here’s the TLDR www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience...

Dozens of Clinical Trials Have Been Frozen in Response to Trump’s USAID Order The stop-work order on U.S.A.I.D.-funded research has left thousands of people with experimental drugs and devices in their bodies, with no access to monitoring or care.

Unconscionable! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...

Diary of an RCT: Natural language analyses of gamma-music-based intervention. Latest #musicscience in which we analyze journal data to show feasibility of coupling lights in the gamma band with music for mild cognitive impairment doi.org/10.47513/mmd...

I think one thing that the general public doesn’t fully grasp yet is that American science funding was already teetering on the edge before all this started.

www.eenews.net/articles/sci...

A short thread on why your scientist friends are freaking out.

1/7

A sea otter looks at the camera, hands to its face.

It's a lot.

Every day, new onslaughts in so many different spheres. It's hard to keep up, let alone act. Simply being a patriotic American today feels like being an epidemiologist in the early days of the pandemic.

Do what you can—then be gentle with yourself. Take time. You need your strength.