Guest Scholar to Examine the Psychology of Music

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Carol Krumhansl

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Carol Krumhansl, professor of psychology at Cornell University, will be giving a guest lecture on the psychology of music at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 8, in Mullins Library, room 104. The lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the department of music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Krumhansl’s work explores human perception and cognition, cognitive processes in music perception and memory, application of mathematical models to psychological data and multidimensional scaling and clustering.

“Memory is essential for making music meaningful,” says Krumhansl. “Musical emotion is considered to occur in
moments when our expectations are violated, with the resolution delayed in artful ways. This creates waves of tension and relaxation that depend on our knowledge of musical structure acquired through past listenings.”

Krumhansl has published in many of the top-tier psychology journals, comprising both empirical and theoretical reports and influential review articles and chapters. Her 1990 book Cognitive Foundations of Musical Pitch continues to be an important influence in her field. Two admiring reviews at the time of publication independently used the word "landmark" to describe the work.

That judgment has been validated in the years since, with more than 1,000 citations of the book and Krumhansl’s acceptance of the 2011 Society for Music Perception and Cognition Achievement Award.

For additional information about this event or about the university's music cognition lab, please contact Elizabeth Margulis at ehm@uark.edu or visit the lab's website.