Why sound does what it does to people — psychoacoustics, memory, rhythm perception, and the evolutionary puzzle of musicality.
9 topics · 10 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
The Puzzle of Absolute Pitch
Diana Deutsch · 2002
Argues that absolute pitch is far more widespread than assumed and is best explained as a general perceptual ability that is lost in most children…
+1 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Dissecting an Earworm: Melodic Features and Song Popularity Predict Involuntary Musical Imagery
Kelly Jakubowski, Sebastian Finkel, Lauren Stewart & Daniel Mullensiefen · 2017
Analyses the melodic contour and interval structure of commonly reported earworm tunes and finds that specific, statistically identifiable melodic…
+1 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music
Hermann von Helmholtz · 1863
Argues that consonance and dissonance are physiological facts about how the ear processes overlapping overtones, and derives the basic facts of…
+5 more at this level
10 works
Diana Deutsch
Argues that absolute pitch is far more widespread than assumed and is best explained as a general perceptual ability that is lost in most children during a critical period unless reinforced, such as by a tone language.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Milton Mermikides (Gresham College)
Argues that musical emotion comes from expectation being set up, delayed and resolved, so what moves a listener is structural timing rather than the sounds themselves.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Kelly Jakubowski, Sebastian Finkel, Lauren Stewart & Daniel Mullensiefen
Analyses the melodic contour and interval structure of commonly reported earworm tunes and finds that specific, statistically identifiable melodic features predict which songs get stuck in memory.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Viggo Kruger & Kathleen M. Murphy
Argues that music therapy practice with children should be organised explicitly around the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, rather than treating children's participation and best interest as background assumptions.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Hermann von Helmholtz
Argues that consonance and dissonance are physiological facts about how the ear processes overlapping overtones, and derives the basic facts of musical scales and harmony from that physiology.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Carl E. Seashore
Argues that musical ability is not one faculty but a bundle of separately measurable capacities, such as pitch discrimination and rhythm sense, that vary independently between individuals.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Aniruddh D. Patel & Joseph R. Daniele
Finds a measurable statistical link between a composer's native language rhythm and the rhythmic structure of their instrumental music, arguing that speech rhythm leaves a trace in musical composition.
link checked 17 Sept 2026W. Tecumseh Fitch
Argues that comparing human music to vocal learning in birds, whales and seals is more informative than comparing it to primate calls, since vocal learning rather than primate ancestry is the relevant shared trait.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Patrik N. Juslin & Daniel Vastfjall
Argues that music evokes genuine emotion through at least six distinct psychological mechanisms, not one, and that studies conflating them explain why the field's findings look inconsistent.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Robert J. Zatorre & Valorie N. Salimpoor
Argues that musical pleasure arises from the interaction of auditory prediction circuits with the brain's dopamine reward system, so that music rewards the brain for successfully anticipating its own structure.
link checked 17 Sept 2026This subject genuinely sits in more than one domain. These fields approach the same ground with different methods.