Can music help us understand information better and improve learning?
Did you know that when words are put to song, our brains track those words more accurately than when they are spoken? Our lab showed that in two past studies, but there are no studies that have looked at how better neural tracking of songs relates to real-world outcomes like word comprehension or understanding the meaning of a story. We were JUST awarded a GRAMMY Museum Grant to carry out a series of studies in the lab and in the language learning classroom to better understnad how brain measures related to behaviour! We propose to use mobile EEG in the classroom and in the lab to determine how neural tracking of song and speech relates to language comprehension, intelligibility, and memory. Our results will add the scientists general knowledge about brain-behaviour relaiotnships and has the potentional to inform classroom instruction and interventions for individuals who struggle with listening and reading.
Dr. Anna Czepiel, our new postdoctoral fellow, will lead the studies with her expertise in naturalistic study designs and is a co-PI on the GRAMMY grant we just recieved. Dr. Czepiel also recently won a prestigious UTM postdoctoral fellowship to support this and other work at UTM for the next two years! Congrats, Anna!
Did we really get a GRAMMY? Well, the GRAMMY Museum Grant Program is funded by the Recording Academy and they handed out 14 awards (a total of $200,000 USD) for music science and preservation this year. Our GRAMMY was 1 of only 4 scientific awards this year, so we are very honoured and excited to use these funds to carry out some rigorous music science! We'll keep our eye out for an actually golden GRAMMY award...
Check out the other GRAMMY science and preservation winners here
Or reach out to us here to participate in the research, either as an infant, child, or adult participant, or as a volunteer in the lab!
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