The application deadline is rapidly approaching: 11:59pm (time in Sydney Australia), Tuesday 24 March 2026.

Research Fellow in Music Science Job Description: * 5-year Fixed-Term Contract, Full-time position at Academic Level B. * Based at the MARCS Institute with flexible working arrangements. * Salary: $120,908 – $142,769 per annum, plus ...

I am writing to announce a 5-year Research Fellowship in Music Science at the MARCS Institute, Australia.

You will design and lead research projects that use mathematical and computational approaches to investigate music and its cognition.

Further details: jobs.smartrecruiters.com/WesternSydne...

Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery

The first study from my PhD project is now available! 🎉

"Micro-variations in timing and loudness affect music-evoked mental imagery"

Supervised by wonderful @steffenherff.bsky.social @andytonality.bsky.social and @muireannirish.bsky.social.

Read here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On the left, a Papua New Guinean musician in ceremonial clothes is performing on the Kundu drum (a long hourglass-shaped wooden drum). In the background, members of the community are enjoying the show. On the right, in the background, are plots showing the results of computational analyses of the effects of different music-acoustical features on perceived music stability in several different communities. On the right, in the foreground, a young woman from PNG is wearing headphones and taking part in a music cognition experiment.

We are offering an exciting #Cross-Cultural #MusicScience PhD scholarship in Sydney for our ARC Discovery project "Revealing Universal and Cultural Origins of Music-Induced Emotion": international field trips, music cognition experiments, Bayesian analyses!

www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools/grs/...

We are advertising an exciting #MusicScience PhD scholarship in Sydney, Australia as part of our ARC Discovery project "Revealing Universal and Cultural Origins of Music-Induced Affect": international field trips, music cognition experiments, Bayesian analyses! Please share.

WCE2024 - INT02 - Debate - Have DAGS fulfilled their promise? YouTube video by World Congress of Epidemiology 2024

"Have directed acyclic graphs fullfilled their promise?" - the recording of my debate with @margaritamb.bsky.social at the World Congress of Epidemiology 2024 is now available on YouTube!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG79...

#EpiSky #CausalSky #WCE2025

We were thrilled to welcome Prof George Williams AO, Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University to MARCS Institute!

The VC chatted to our researchers about the exciting work in child development, neuromorphic research, biomedical engineering, & music science. Thanks for your support & insights!

🌎As #languages disappear, so do parts of a #community’s identity and culture. ✨Newly funded ARC Discovery Project, led by Dr Hannah Sarvasy, will explore the impact of preserving #Indigenous languages in Papua New Guinea and beyond. 🔗 tinyurl.com/2fda6wy5

@katestevartssci.bsky.social

Project ID: DP250101116. Investigators: Associate Professor Andrew Milne; Professor Roger Dean; Professor Emery Schubert; Dr Catherine Ingram; Dr Hannah Sarvasy; Professor Tuomas Eerola. Summary: Revealing Universal and Cultural Origins of Music-Induced Affect. Across almost all human cultures, music has a remarkable capacity to communicate different affects (emotions and feelings). However it is unknown which, if any, associations between music-acoustical features and affects are universal, and which are cultural. In a music cognition field-research program of unprecedented scope, we aim to estimate how tones in melodic, polyphonic, harmonic, and rhythmic contexts influence affective responses, and the extent to which these effects are mediated by cultural mechanisms (familiarity and association). The findings will have profound implications for the use of sound and music in therapeutic applications and will help identify ways to bridge cultural divides through intercultural musical appreciation. Announced: 26/11/2024. Admin Organisation: Western Sydney University. Primary FOR: 3603. Funding Awarded: $914,548.00

I am very happy to report that our ARC Discovery project – Revealing Universal and Cultural Origins of Music-Induced Affect – has been funded ($915,000 over 4 years). The team is amazing, and the project has unprecedented scope for multicultural music cognition field experiments. #MusicScience

Music communicates emotions across cultures, but how much is universal vs cultural? ✨Newly funded #ARC #Discovery Project will explore music's impact on #health, #wellbeing, and the global #music industry. 🔗https://tinyurl.com/2fda6wy5

#MusicScience @katestevartssci.bsky.social

Bar graph (blue bars) showing the funding invested in the ARC’s Discovery Projects scheme each year since 2002, including yesterday’s outcomes for 2025. There’s a red line showing the success rate (number of applications approved divided by the number submitted). Data compiled here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AyITNrCVt7pdLiUzyvC99q7l_X99rCS68r8_3i3h85s/edit?usp=sharing.

Yesterday was an improvement for Discovery Projects.

An extra ~$110 million was invested compared to last year (which was a low point).

It replaces rapid loss in last 2 years & aligns investment with the last 12 years (adjusted for inflation).

Not enough, but a start!

Acoustical and cultural explanations for contextual tonal stability: http://osf.io/zhjd2/

Our International Visiting Scholar Scheme 2024 is now open!

Spend 1-3 months in 2024 working with our brilliant researchers in amazing facilities!
Two streams available: #PhD Students: $AUD 2,500 & #ECR #MCR: $AUD 3,500.
Applications close: 24th January 2024.
tinyurl.com/visitMARCS

Join us! We're hiring a 3yr Postdoc Research Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience to investigate perceptual & cognitive processes of #socialinteraction & #communication with @manuelvarlet.bsky.social @perikeller.bsky.social
Applications close 1 Dec tinyurl.com/JoinMARCS #postdoc #cogneuro #musicscience

I'm so thrilled that Adrian's pioneering work on randomising grant outcomes is gaining traction internationally. We need an organisation here in Australia willing to give it a go...

#statsky #biostats

JCU has the Elizabeth Pearse Music Scholarship to fund the study of music at Masters or PhD level. Applications now open. #MusicScience

I was there too (in the afternoon) – shame I didn't see you to say hello.

Two postdoc positions in cyberpsychology at the University of Newcastle, Australia

More info: mathpsych.org

#CogPsyc #Psychology #PhDSky #PsychJobs

More ways of splitting the octave

www.johndcook.com/blog/2023/10...

Open peer review planned for Psychological Science

#Psychology #MetaSci #ScientificPublishing

www.science.org/content/arti...

NO MORE AGAIN - CARLA BLEY It was the afternoon of Saturday, 16 February 1980, a day I'll remember for the rest of my life, when I travelled to the old Bridge Stree...

Some words on Carla Bley:
warmrationalism.blogspot.com/2023/10/no-m...

youtu.be/bvDhRrGCwqg?...

RIP the wonderful Carla Bley www.theguardian.com/music/2023/o...

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   
(Still the dead one lay moaning)   
I was much too far out all my life   
And not waving but drowning.

Evidence for a universal association of auditory roughness with musical stability We provide evidence that the roughness of chords—a psychoacoustic property resulting from unresolved frequency components—is associated with perceived musical stability (operationalized as finishe...

New platform, new paper! 🎵 doi.org/10.1371/jour...
The second article from our #musicscience field-research in Papua New Guinea and Sydney is out! We find that acoustical roughness is universally associated with musical consonance/dissonance (operationalized as “stability”)!