Our research into the psychology of music has two main branches: emotions evoked by music and musical ability.

We developed the GEMS, a taxonomy that allows to accurately classify and measure music-evoked emotions. Having established the empirical validity of the GEMS by statistical, behavioral, and neuroimaging sources of evidence, we use this tool to make predictions about how and when emotions are induced by music. The GEMS has several applications, such as enriching metadata of audio files (tags), organizing digital music libraries by emotion, or creating emotion-sensitive algorithms for music recommendations.

Our work on musical ability encompasses research on the basic building blocks of musical aptitude. We created the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) – a test battery for the assessment of musical strengths and areas for improvement. By means of this tool, we explore associations between musical skills and non-musical skills, such as memory, empathy, and ability to recognize emotions.

More information about our current research projects can be found below.