Claire Howlin 🎶🧠

Babies can categorise objects at two months, TCD-led research reveals Professor Rhodri Cusack, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, explains research that found two-month-olds can categorise objects in their brain.

"Babies can categorise objects at two months" - Listen to Professor Rhodri Cusack discuss with RTÉ this exciting new research being done at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN). Listen below:

https://ow.ly/fYnZ50Yc7NN

TrinityNeuroscience

Virtually Together: Exploring the Impact of a Low-Latency Synchronized Audio Platform on Participant Wellbeing in a Facilitated Online Singing Group - Tara R. Gaertner, Cynthia C. Z. Friesen, Sean Gil... While previous research shows that group singing has clear benefits for wellbeing, there is limited data on how these benefits transfer to online singing groups...

Love this, Shame it’s underpowered but delighted to see the use of a low-latency audio platform for a music group.

This has been one of the biggest short comings in online music therapy- which has exploded post COVID.

Hopefully there will be a follow up study..

doi.org/10.1177/2059...

Excited to announce our article has been published! doi.org/10.1177/2059...

I led a project to operationalise constructs that identify the emotional episodes people experience listening to music. #MusicScience experts assessed items against prior theory, a surprisingly under reported practice 🔭❗

What’s in your head while you listen to music? Share your thoughts as you listen to music during a 40-minute survey we are running @durhammusicdept.bsky.social from the 18-20th February. Sign up at www.signupgenius.com/go/10C044EA5... to book your preferred time slot. #MusicScience

AI chatbots are infiltrating social-science surveys — and getting better at avoiding detection A researcher has created a chatbot that is indistinguishable from human participants in online surveys. Some researchers fear that a workhorse of social science is now under threat.

"In 6,700 tests, the bot managed to pass standard 'attention check' questions (which are designed to catch inattentive humans and simple bots) 99.8% of the time." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Love this. “Spontaneous” has always really meant “we don’t know why X is happening”, a perspective tied to the dominance of structured task paradigms for studying cognition, behavior, and brain activity.

Wonderful! I was watching a documentary about the 60’s and 70’s and was struck how integral music was to the revolution against Nixon, Vietnam, and Civil Rights. Music is power.

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

SysMus26 We are looking forward to hosting the next International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology very soon! SysMus26—the 19th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology—i…

Last week to submit abstracts to join our group in Durham in July for the SysMus26 conference! Please share with any interested #musicscience students! musicscience.net/events/sysmu...

Philip Glass pulls Kennedy Center premiere in US Renowned American composer Philip Glass has become the latest artist to sever ties with Washington's Kennedy Center following its takeover by US President Donald Trump, withdrawing a major new work fr...

www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

Slow Research, yes, but not boring!

2026 is off to a great start! 🎉 Excited to share my new open-access publication in @plosone.org! 🎶 This study examines how our sense of self (self-construal) influences the pleasure (musical reward) we get from listening to our favourite music. Read it here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Reminder: Apply or Nominate someone for the 2026 SfNC Awards! Deadline - Feb. 1st ⏰

SfNC is proud to offer three annual awards recognizing outstanding contributions to creativity research. Winners receive a cash prize and are invited to present their work.

Details here: www.tsfnc.org/sfnc-awards

Love this, I love slow living. If you could get a slow walk through a gallery one a week/fortnight it would be a good life.

Musical expertise and cognitive abilities: no advantage for professionals over amateurs Abstract. Cognitive advantages in musicians are often attributed to far transfer from music training. If this causal interpretation is correct, greater mus

Sometimes I remember that I have a bluesky account ;)

I'm very happy to share our last paper, investigating how cognitive skills relate to different levels of musical expertise:

url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

@cesarflima.bsky.social @masssimo006.bsky.social

Science Is Drowning in AI Slop Peer review has met its match.

AI slop is everywhere in scientific publishing, we’re only catching the easy-to-detect stuff (like when you happen to peer review a manuscript with a AI-hallucinated reference of a paper you apparently wrote)

www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...

#MusicScience AND #NeuroJobs, together at last!

I can personally recommend several excellent chocolateries nearby:
www.fens.org/careers/job-...

Music plays an important role in relationships, especially in the early stages. It can help people express identity, share emotions and bond. But how does music contribute to romantic love at different stages of a relationship?

Read more: doi.org/10.12688/ope...

#MusicScience #MusicSky

Just watched it this week and loved it! Such a good sound track

🧛🏻‍♀️🎶🎸🌅

Great topic!

Over the holidays I saw this mesmerising sound sculpture by Zimoun in #Nantes in the Museé d’arts.

528 prepared dc motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes

‘a soundscape of opposites: the individual and the collective, order +chaos, routine +chance, simplicity and complexity’

#aesthetics #museum

Gustavo Augusto Fonseca Silva, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in Light of the Diagnosis of Autism - PhilPapers On January 27, 1937, while traveling to Skjolden, a Norwegian village on the edge of the Sogne Fjord, where in 1913 he had built a hut for secluded living, philosopher Ludwig ...

From: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophy in Light of the Diagnosis of Autism philpapers.org/rec/SILLWP-2...

The image is of a recruitment poster for a research study: (images) University of Salford and Leverhulme Trust logos (text) Hearing loss, wellbeing and music Do you have first hand experience of hearing loss? Do you regularly listen to music? Are you interested in taking part in a research study? You are eligible to take part if you: are 18 years or older, have experience of hearing loss, listen to music in your day-to-day life. The study will involve: taking part in an online survey (about 20 minutes), answering questions about your hearing, how you engage with music, and questions about mental health and wellbeing. For more information: Please email Addie Beckwith, PhD student at the University of Salford - a.m.beckwith@edu.salford.ac.uk. Supervisors: Dr Duncan Williams and Dr Robert Bendall (images) A large ear, a mute symbol, musical notes and a treble clef, an MP3 player and wired earbuds.

A QR code that leads to the survey link: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/salford/hearing-loss-wellbeing-and-music

* CURRENTLY RECRUITING *

Do you have experience of hearing loss? Do you regularly listen to music? If you can answer yes to both questions, then we would like to hear from you.

This study is concerned with understanding the link between everyday music listening, mental health & wellbeing.

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Why are heavy metal fans so nice?
#heavymetal #metalheads #musicpsychology #mentalhealth #neuroscience #sciencecommunication

🎶💤 Registration for the 1st #ConfMusSleep in Aarhus, DK is now open!

🕒 Early-bird: until 15/03/26
🕒 Regular: 16/03–26/04/26

👉 For registration link, fees and deadlines: musicinthebrain.au.dk/internationa...
#musicscience

Ha, time is ever elusive.. 🤣

Thanks - I’ll be busy.. 🐝

a man is reading a book with fire coming out of his chest ALT: a man is reading a book with fire coming out of his chest

Bad news: A deadline I thought was in February is this Friday. ❌

Good news: My February just opened up. ✅

#backToSchool #Academic #WhatIsTime

Opinion | Whatever Ails You, the Answer Is Dance

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/o...

Nice reminder that we can dance our way through the bleakness of just about anything - even January…

🎶💃🕺🪩👯‍♀️🎶

NYAS Publications Prominent theories suggest that the urge to move along to rhythmic music is driven by precision-weighted prediction errors. We operationalized this account as a Bayesian model which outputs surprisal...

Nice new paper here providing a model of why we want to move.

#musiccognition #music #research #musicscience

nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....