This blog has been on hiatus while I work on my Masters thesis. I’m still working on it, but I’m going to try to get in here and at least link to interesting content once in a while.
Here’s a transcription of an excellent talk by Benjamin H. Bratton at Postopolis LA. Though it doesn’t take music or cognitive science as its primary subject, it identifies some cultural currents important to the social and political positions of both fields.
And here’s coverage of some interesting but deeply problematic research regarding the universality of musical emotion. The researchers had subjects who claim never to have heard Western music classify the emotionality of songs by pointing at pictures of faces expressing one of three emotions: happiness, sadness, and fear. I have not yet read the paper, but the media coverage is characteristically enthusiastic and uncritical, using such misleading and awful headlines as Feel-Good Music Feels Good Around the World and Language Of Music Really Is Universal, Study Finds.
Update: Decent coverage of the Mafa music study at Cognitive Daily.