Last Saturday, an article appeared in the Volkskrant about why we like music so much. Prof. Henkjan Honing (my PhD supervisor) comments on the possible evolutionary roots for our love for music, and I chime in with some thoughts on why our brains like music so much (spoiler: something to do with expectations!). See the […]
On June 24, after two intensive and inspiring weeks of the ABC Summer School on Musicality, I had the honour to moderate a symposium on sad music, with a keynote lecture by Prof. David Huron, to celebrate him receiving the Honorary Frijda Chair. A recording of this hybrid symposium is now online, including the keynote […]
The Nationale Wetenschaps Agenda (NWA) has a theme months about music! I was asked to contribute to an item for school children about earworms (the song stuck inside your head). It turned into a whole project, including an article in Kidsweek, a video, and even materials to use in the classroom!
In the summer of 2019, I was lucky to be invited to be part of a Lorentz workshop, in which an inspiring group of researchers came together to discuss rhythm from every possible angle. This workshop was instigated by a fabulous organising team:Henkjan Honing, Sonja Kotz, Andrea Ravignani, and Michael Greenfield. The results of all […]
It was a bit early: 2 am in Hilversum. But also very special to enter the very silent Media Park in the middle of the night, and to have time for an elaborate interview about music, science, and why I happen to always listen to Frozen songs.
Extremely happy to announce that I have been awarded an NWO Veni grant! This personal grant will allow me to continue my research into how we perceive patterns and the beat in musical rhythm for the next 4 years. You can find more information in the NWO press release.
Bouwer, F.L., Honing, H., & Slagter, H.A. (2020). Beat-based and Memory-based Temporal Expectations in Rhythm: Similar Perceptual Effects, Different Underlying Mechanisms All data, experimental files, and analysis scripts are available here. An open access pre-print of the paper, which is identical in content, is available here. The publishers version can be found here. Predicting the […]
F.L. Bouwer, H. Honing, & H.A. Slagter (2019). Beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations in rhythm: similar perceptual effects, different underlying mechanisms Predicting the timing of incoming information allows the brain to optimize information processing in dynamic environments. Behaviorally, temporal expectations have been shown to facilitate processing of events at expected time points, such as sounds […]
Honing, H., Bouwer, F.L., Prado, L., & Merchant, H. (2018). Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) Sense Isochrony in Rhythm, but Not the Beat: Additional Support for the Gradual Audiomotor Evolution Hypothesis Charles Darwin suggested the perception of rhythm to be common to all animals. While only recently experimental research is finding some support for this claim, […]
M.P. Roncaglia-Denissen, F.L. Bouwer, & H. Honing (2018). Decision Making Strategy and the Simultaneous Processing of Syntactic Dependencies in Language and Music Despite differences in their function and domain-specific elements, syntactic processing in music and language is believed to share cognitive resources. This study aims to investigate whether the simultaneous processing of language and music […]