E Glenn Schellenberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 2750239 |
|---|---|
| NAME | E Glenn Schellenberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | E Glenn |
| FAMILY NAME | Schellenberg |
| SIGNATURE | SCHELLENBERG E G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3681-6020 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 99 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Common Evidence, Multiple Interpretations: Commentaries on a Multilab Study on Musicians’ Short-Term Memory
The multilab registered report by Grassi et al. represents the largest collaborative effort to date to estimate differences in short-term memory between musicians and nonmusicians, testing 1,200 participants across 33 units in 15 countries in an a priori registered design that adhered to open-science practices. Beyond providing precise effect-size estimates, the project exposed substantial diversity in how experts interpret the same data set, par…
Musical ability and emotion recognition in speech prosody: The role of pitch discrimination
Why does musical expertise predict enhanced emotion recognition in speech prosody? Evidence for a causal role of music training is weak, and correlations with musical aptitude could reflect basic auditory abilities rather than musicality per se. Here, we tested whether individual differences in basic auditory discrimination account for the music–prosody association. A total of 164 adults completed forced-choice judgments of emotions in prosody an…
Self-awareness of musical ability
We asked whether adults have accurate self-awareness of their musical ability, and whether such self-awareness relates to other individual differences. Participants (N = 256) rated how musical they were compared to their friends, colleagues, family, and the general population. They subsequently completed self-report measures of musical behaviors (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index [Gold-MSI]) and personality, as well as objective tests of co…
Does music training improve emotion recognition and cognitive abilities? Longitudinal and correlational evidence from children
Music training is widely claimed to enhance nonmusical abilities, yet causal evidence remains inconclusive. Moreover, research tends to focus on cognitive over socioemotional outcomes. In two studies, we investigated whether music training improves emotion recognition in voices and faces among school-aged children. We also examined music-training effects on musical abilities, motor skills (fine and gross), broader socioemotional functioning, and …
Associations between music training and cognitive abilities: The special case of professional musicians
We sought to clarify the commonly accepted link between music training and cognitive ability. Professional musicians, nonprofessionals with music training, and musically untrained individuals (N = 642) completed measures of musical ability, personality, and general cognitive ability. Professional musicians scored highest on objective and self-report measures of musical ability. On personality measures, professional musicians and musically trained…
Sandra Trehub (1938–2023)
Research Article| April 01 2023 Sandra Trehub (1938–2023) E. Glenn Schellenberg, E. Glenn Schellenberg Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Laurel J. Trainor Laurel J. Trainor McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Music Perception (2023) 40 (4): 347–349. https://doi.org/10.1…
Measuring Children’s Harmonic Knowledge with Implicit and Explicit Tests
We used implicit and explicit tasks to measure knowledge of Western harmony in musically trained and untrained Canadian children. Younger children were 6–7 years of age; older children were 10–11. On each trial, participants heard a sequence of five piano chords. The first four chords established a major-key context. The final chord was the standard, expected tonic of the context or one of two deviant endings: the highly unexpected flat supertoni…
Correlation = causation? Music training, psychology, and neuroscience
Enhanced recognition of vocal emotions in individuals with naturally good musical abilities
Music training is widely assumed to enhance several nonmusical abilities, including speech perception, executive functions, reading, and emotion recognition. This assumption is based primarily on cross-sectional comparisons between musicians and nonmusicians. It remains unclear, however, whether training itself is necessary to explain the musician advantages, or whether factors such as innate predispositions and informal musical experience could …
Rhythm and syntax processing in school-age children
Scholars debate whether musical and linguistic abilities are associated or independent. In the present study, we examined whether musical rhythm skills predict receptive grammar proficiency in childhood. In Experiment 1, 7- to 17-year-old children ( N = 68) were tested on their grammar and rhythm abilities. In the grammar-comprehension task, children heard short sentences with subject-relative (e.g., "Boys that help girls are nice") or object-rel…
Children's identification of questions from rising terminal pitch
Young children are slow to master conventional intonation patterns in their yes/no questions, which may stem from imperfect understanding of the links between terminal pitch contours and pragmatic intentions. In Experiment 1, five- to ten-year-old children and adults were required to judge utterances as questions or statements on the basis of intonation alone. Children eight years of age or younger performed above chance levels but less accuratel…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
Music training and emotion comprehension in childhood
Children and adults with music training score higher on tests of intellectual ability than their peers without training, but it is unclear whether music lessons are associated with social or emotional functioning. We examined whether music training in childhood is predictive of understanding emotions. We administered the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and a brief IQ test to musically trained and untrained 7- and 8-year-olds. Musically traine…
Short-Term Music Training Enhances Verbal Intelligence and Executive Function
Researchers have designed training methods that can be used to improve mental health and to test the efficacy of education programs. However, few studies have demonstrated broad transfer from such training to performance on untrained cognitive activities. Here we report the effects of two interactive computerized training programs developed for preschool children: one for music and one for visual art. After only 20 days of training, only children…
Misery loves company: Mood-congruent emotional responding to music
We examined emotional responding to music after mood induction. On each trial, listeners heard a 30-s music excerpt and rated how much they liked it, whether it sounded happy or sad, and how familiar it was. When the excerpts sounded unambiguously happy or sad (Experiment 1), the typical preference for happy-sounding music was eliminated after inducing a sad mood. When the excerpts sounded ambiguous with respect to happiness and sadness (Experime…
Music lessons and intelligence: Reply to commentaries
This article is an author response to and commentaries on
Examining the association between music lessons and intelligence: Music lessons and intelligence
Although links between music training and cognitive abilities are relatively well-established, unresolved issues include the generality of the association, the direction of causation, and whether the association is mediated by executive function. Musically trained and untrained 9- to 12-year olds were compared on a measure of IQ and five measures of executive function. IQ and executive function were correlated. The musically trained group had hig…
Shifting perceptions: Developmental changes in judgments of melodic similarity
Musical melodies are recognized on the basis of pitch and temporal relations between consecutive tones. Although some previous evidence (e.g., Saffran & Griepentrog, 2001) points to an absolute-to-relative developmental shift in listeners' perception of pitch, other evidence (e.g., Plantinga & Trainor, 2005; Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003) suggests that both absolute- and relative-pitch processing are evident among listeners of all ages (infants, ch…
Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ
In Study 1 (N 147), duration of music lessons was correlated positively with IQ and with academic ability among 6- to 11-year-olds, even when potential confounding variables (i.e., family income, parents' education, involvement in nonmusical activities) were held constant. In Study 2 (N 150), similar but weaker associations between playing music in childhood and intellectual functioning were evident among undergraduates. In both studies, there wa…
Music Lessons Enhance IQ
The idea that music makes you smarter has received considerable attention from scholars and the media. The present report is the first to test this hypothesis directly with random assignment of a large sample of children (N = 144) to two different types of music lessons (keyboard or voice) or to control groups that received drama lessons or no lessons. IQ was measured before and after the lessons. Compared with children in the control groups, chi…
Decoding speech prosody: Do music lessons help
Three experiments revealed that music lessons promote sensitivity to emotions conveyed by speech prosody. After hearing semantically neutral utterances spoken with emotional (i.e., happy, sad, fearful, or angry) prosody, or tone sequences that mimicked the utterances' prosody, participants identified the emotion conveyed. In Experiment 1 (n=20), musically trained adults performed better than untrained adults. In Experiment 2 (n=56), musically tra…
Effects of Musical Tempo and Mode on Arousal, Mood, and Spatial Abilities
We examined effects of tempo and mode on spatial ability, arousal, and mood. A Mozart sonata was performed by a skilled pianist and recorded as a MIDI file. The file was edited to produce four versions that varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Participants listened to a single version and completed measures of spatial ability, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was superior after listening to music at a fast r…
Arousal, Mood, and The Mozart Effect
The “Mozart effect” refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. We examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition differences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a test of spatial abilities after listening to music or sitting in silence. The music was a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni ad…
Accounting for unsafe sex: Interviews with men who have sex with men
Semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews with 102 gay and bisexual men were conducted to examine the reasoning processes men use to exempt themselves from practicing safe sex. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed the following recurring themes: (a) Many men who were in couple relationships avoided condom use for reasons involving intimacy or trust, or because both partners were HIV‐negative; (b) unsafe sex sometimes occurred inadvertently…
Attitudes Toward Homosexuals Among Students at a Canadian University
Attitudes Toward Homosexuals Among Students at a Canadian University
Evaluating Measures of Contemporary Sexism
Two recently published measures of contemporary sexist attitudes were examined and compared with a sample of 106 Canadian college students. Swim, Aikin, Hall, and Hunter's (1995) Modern Sexism scale was found to be an acceptable measure of sexist attitudes in terms of its internal reliability and its ability to predict other gender-related political attitudes. Although the Modern Sexism scale and the Neosexism scale (Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly…
Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ
In Study 1 (N 147), duration of music lessons was correlated positively with IQ and with academic ability among 6- to 11-year-olds, even when potential confounding variables (i.e., family income, parents' education, involvement in nonmusical activities) were held constant. In Study 2 (N 150), similar but weaker associations between playing music in childhood and intellectual functioning were evident among undergraduates. In both studies, there wa…
Accounting for unsafe sex: Interviews with men who have sex with men
Semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews with 102 gay and bisexual men were conducted to examine the reasoning processes men use to exempt themselves from practicing safe sex. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed the following recurring themes: (a) Many men who were in couple relationships avoided condom use for reasons involving intimacy or trust, or because both partners were HIV‐negative; (b) unsafe sex sometimes occurred inadvertently…
Examining the association between music lessons and intelligence: Music lessons and intelligence
Although links between music training and cognitive abilities are relatively well-established, unresolved issues include the generality of the association, the direction of causation, and whether the association is mediated by executive function. Musically trained and untrained 9- to 12-year olds were compared on a measure of IQ and five measures of executive function. IQ and executive function were correlated. The musically trained group had hig…
Children's discrimination of melodic intervals
Adults and 6-year-old children were tested on their discrimination of pure-tone sequences as a function ofthe simplicity ofthe frequency ratios between tones in the sequences. Listeners were required to detect either changes from intervals (combinations of 2 tones) with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios or changes from intervals with complex frequency ratios to those with simpler ratios. In Experiment I, adults performed b…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
Shifting perceptions: Developmental changes in judgments of melodic similarity
Musical melodies are recognized on the basis of pitch and temporal relations between consecutive tones. Although some previous evidence (e.g., Saffran & Griepentrog, 2001) points to an absolute-to-relative developmental shift in listeners' perception of pitch, other evidence (e.g., Plantinga & Trainor, 2005; Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003) suggests that both absolute- and relative-pitch processing are evident among listeners of all ages (infants, ch…
Children's discrimination of melodic intervals
Adults and 6-year-old children were tested on their discrimination of pure-tone sequences as a function ofthe simplicity ofthe frequency ratios between tones in the sequences. Listeners were required to detect either changes from intervals (combinations of 2 tones) with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios or changes from intervals with complex frequency ratios to those with simpler ratios. In Experiment I, adults performed b…
Evaluating Measures of Contemporary Sexism
Two recently published measures of contemporary sexist attitudes were examined and compared with a sample of 106 Canadian college students. Swim, Aikin, Hall, and Hunter's (1995) Modern Sexism scale was found to be an acceptable measure of sexist attitudes in terms of its internal reliability and its ability to predict other gender-related political attitudes. Although the Modern Sexism scale and the Neosexism scale (Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly…
Attitudes Toward Homosexuals Among Students at a Canadian University
Accounting for unsafe sex: Interviews with men who have sex with men
Semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews with 102 gay and bisexual men were conducted to examine the reasoning processes men use to exempt themselves from practicing safe sex. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed the following recurring themes: (a) Many men who were in couple relationships avoided condom use for reasons involving intimacy or trust, or because both partners were HIV‐negative; (b) unsafe sex sometimes occurred inadvertently…
Arousal, Mood, and The Mozart Effect
The “Mozart effect” refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. We examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition differences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a test of spatial abilities after listening to music or sitting in silence. The music was a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni ad…
Effects of Musical Tempo and Mode on Arousal, Mood, and Spatial Abilities
We examined effects of tempo and mode on spatial ability, arousal, and mood. A Mozart sonata was performed by a skilled pianist and recorded as a MIDI file. The file was edited to produce four versions that varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Participants listened to a single version and completed measures of spatial ability, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was superior after listening to music at a fast r…
Music Lessons Enhance IQ
The idea that music makes you smarter has received considerable attention from scholars and the media. The present report is the first to test this hypothesis directly with random assignment of a large sample of children (N = 144) to two different types of music lessons (keyboard or voice) or to control groups that received drama lessons or no lessons. IQ was measured before and after the lessons. Compared with children in the control groups, chi…
Decoding speech prosody: Do music lessons help
Three experiments revealed that music lessons promote sensitivity to emotions conveyed by speech prosody. After hearing semantically neutral utterances spoken with emotional (i.e., happy, sad, fearful, or angry) prosody, or tone sequences that mimicked the utterances' prosody, participants identified the emotion conveyed. In Experiment 1 (n=20), musically trained adults performed better than untrained adults. In Experiment 2 (n=56), musically tra…
Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ
In Study 1 (N 147), duration of music lessons was correlated positively with IQ and with academic ability among 6- to 11-year-olds, even when potential confounding variables (i.e., family income, parents' education, involvement in nonmusical activities) were held constant. In Study 2 (N 150), similar but weaker associations between playing music in childhood and intellectual functioning were evident among undergraduates. In both studies, there wa…
Shifting perceptions: Developmental changes in judgments of melodic similarity
Musical melodies are recognized on the basis of pitch and temporal relations between consecutive tones. Although some previous evidence (e.g., Saffran & Griepentrog, 2001) points to an absolute-to-relative developmental shift in listeners' perception of pitch, other evidence (e.g., Plantinga & Trainor, 2005; Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003) suggests that both absolute- and relative-pitch processing are evident among listeners of all ages (infants, ch…
Short-Term Music Training Enhances Verbal Intelligence and Executive Function
Researchers have designed training methods that can be used to improve mental health and to test the efficacy of education programs. However, few studies have demonstrated broad transfer from such training to performance on untrained cognitive activities. Here we report the effects of two interactive computerized training programs developed for preschool children: one for music and one for visual art. After only 20 days of training, only children…
Misery loves company: Mood-congruent emotional responding to music
We examined emotional responding to music after mood induction. On each trial, listeners heard a 30-s music excerpt and rated how much they liked it, whether it sounded happy or sad, and how familiar it was. When the excerpts sounded unambiguously happy or sad (Experiment 1), the typical preference for happy-sounding music was eliminated after inducing a sad mood. When the excerpts sounded ambiguous with respect to happiness and sadness (Experime…
Music lessons and intelligence: Reply to commentaries
This article is an author response to and commentaries on
Examining the association between music lessons and intelligence: Music lessons and intelligence
Although links between music training and cognitive abilities are relatively well-established, unresolved issues include the generality of the association, the direction of causation, and whether the association is mediated by executive function. Musically trained and untrained 9- to 12-year olds were compared on a measure of IQ and five measures of executive function. IQ and executive function were correlated. The musically trained group had hig…
Music training and emotion comprehension in childhood
Children and adults with music training score higher on tests of intellectual ability than their peers without training, but it is unclear whether music lessons are associated with social or emotional functioning. We examined whether music training in childhood is predictive of understanding emotions. We administered the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and a brief IQ test to musically trained and untrained 7- and 8-year-olds. Musically traine…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
Children's identification of questions from rising terminal pitch
Young children are slow to master conventional intonation patterns in their yes/no questions, which may stem from imperfect understanding of the links between terminal pitch contours and pragmatic intentions. In Experiment 1, five- to ten-year-old children and adults were required to judge utterances as questions or statements on the basis of intonation alone. Children eight years of age or younger performed above chance levels but less accuratel…
Correlation = causation? Music training, psychology, and neuroscience
Enhanced recognition of vocal emotions in individuals with naturally good musical abilities
Music training is widely assumed to enhance several nonmusical abilities, including speech perception, executive functions, reading, and emotion recognition. This assumption is based primarily on cross-sectional comparisons between musicians and nonmusicians. It remains unclear, however, whether training itself is necessary to explain the musician advantages, or whether factors such as innate predispositions and informal musical experience could …
Rhythm and syntax processing in school-age children
Scholars debate whether musical and linguistic abilities are associated or independent. In the present study, we examined whether musical rhythm skills predict receptive grammar proficiency in childhood. In Experiment 1, 7- to 17-year-old children ( N = 68) were tested on their grammar and rhythm abilities. In the grammar-comprehension task, children heard short sentences with subject-relative (e.g., "Boys that help girls are nice") or object-rel…
Measuring Children’s Harmonic Knowledge with Implicit and Explicit Tests
We used implicit and explicit tasks to measure knowledge of Western harmony in musically trained and untrained Canadian children. Younger children were 6–7 years of age; older children were 10–11. On each trial, participants heard a sequence of five piano chords. The first four chords established a major-key context. The final chord was the standard, expected tonic of the context or one of two deviant endings: the highly unexpected flat supertoni…
Sandra Trehub (1938–2023)
Research Article| April 01 2023 Sandra Trehub (1938–2023) E. Glenn Schellenberg, E. Glenn Schellenberg Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Laurel J. Trainor Laurel J. Trainor McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Music Perception (2023) 40 (4): 347–349. https://doi.org/10.1…
Associations between music training and cognitive abilities: The special case of professional musicians
We sought to clarify the commonly accepted link between music training and cognitive ability. Professional musicians, nonprofessionals with music training, and musically untrained individuals (N = 642) completed measures of musical ability, personality, and general cognitive ability. Professional musicians scored highest on objective and self-report measures of musical ability. On personality measures, professional musicians and musically trained…
Self-awareness of musical ability
We asked whether adults have accurate self-awareness of their musical ability, and whether such self-awareness relates to other individual differences. Participants (N = 256) rated how musical they were compared to their friends, colleagues, family, and the general population. They subsequently completed self-report measures of musical behaviors (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index [Gold-MSI]) and personality, as well as objective tests of co…
Does music training improve emotion recognition and cognitive abilities? Longitudinal and correlational evidence from children
Music training is widely claimed to enhance nonmusical abilities, yet causal evidence remains inconclusive. Moreover, research tends to focus on cognitive over socioemotional outcomes. In two studies, we investigated whether music training improves emotion recognition in voices and faces among school-aged children. We also examined music-training effects on musical abilities, motor skills (fine and gross), broader socioemotional functioning, and …
Psychology (24 works) · Neuroscience and Music Perception (19 works) · Developmental psychology (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Diverse Music Education Insights (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Musical (7 works) · Audiology (6 works) · Cognitive Abilities and Testing (6 works)