Music Cognition Group

The Music Cognition Group (MCG) is part of the Department of Musicology, the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), and Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and is housed at LAB42, Science Park Amsterdam.

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Our research offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the capacity to perceive, make, and appreciate music. It asks what music is for and why every human culture has it, whether musicality is a uniquely human capacity, and what biological and cognitive mechanisms underlie it.

The current research program aims to identify the basic neurocognitive mechanisms that constitute the cognitive and biological basis of musicality, as well as developing theoretical, computational and empirical methods for analyzing various musicality phenotypes.

Meet our researchersResearch agendaMedia attention
Universiteit van AmsterdamAmsterdam Music LabMusic Cognition Reading GroupMusicality Genomics ConsortiumToontjeHoger

What is music cognition?

We are all born with a predisposition for music, a predisposition that develops spontaneously and is refined by listening to music. Nearly everyone possesses the musical skills essential to experiencing and appreciating music. Think of “relative pitch,” recognizing a melody separately from the exact pitch or tempo at which it is sung, and “beat perception,” hearing regularity in a varying rhythm. Even human newborns turn out to be sensitive to intonation or melody, rhythm, and the dynamics of the sounds in their surroundings. Everything suggests that human biology is already primed for music at birth with respect to both the perception and enjoyment of listening.

Human musicality is clearly special; Musicality being a set of natural, spontaneously developing traits based on, or constrained by, our cognitive abilities (attention, memory, expectation) and our biological predisposition. But what makes it special? Is it because we appear to be the only animals with such a vast musical repertoire? Is our musical predisposition unique, like our linguistic ability? Or is musicality something with a long evolutionary history that we share with other animals? (Honing, 2019).

Latest news

ABC Colloquium with dr Samuel Mehr
ABC Colloquium with dr Samuel Mehr
5 Sep 2023
Keynote by dr Adam Rutherford
Keynote by dr Adam Rutherford
5 Sep 2023
TuneTwins: A  fun game testing your musical memory!
TuneTwins: A fun game testing your musical memory!
25 Jul 2023
New website of MCG is now online!
New website of MCG is now online!
5 Jul 2023
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Media attention

Kan AI de winnaar van het Songfestival voorspellen?NPO1
Marathon interview met Henkjan HoningNPO1
Mooie muziek, maar waarom?VPRO Gids
Ieder mens kan muziek herkennen, maken en waarderenNewScientist
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Latest publications

Li, J., Baker, D. J., Burgoyne, J. A., & Honing, H. (2023). Is Pitch Information Indispensable for Music Recognition? A Pilot Study Based on a Musical Matching Pairs Game. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, 65–71.
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Music Matters

Latest posts from Henkjan Honing’s blog Music Matters

Did you enjoy playing the game Memory?
Did you enjoy playing the game Memory?
5 Jul 2023
What is the use of the comparative approach in studying the origins of language and music?
What is the use of the comparative approach in studying the origins of language and music?
30 Apr 2023
What is your position in the BBS discussion on the origins of music/ality? [update]
What is your position in the BBS discussion on the origins of music/ality? [update]
24 Feb 2023
Interested in becoming Assistant Professor in Generative AI in Amsterdam?
Interested in becoming Assistant Professor in Generative AI in Amsterdam?
28 Dec 2022
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