rarely applied as stimulus material in neuroimaging studies. 19 out of 117 conference papers include
popular music. Noteworthy papers which specify popular music are the following:
Western popular music, NM I
Drake & El Heni (NM I no. 48, pp. 429-437) have studied intercultural differences on the basis of
French and Tunisian popular songs.
Western popular music, NM II
Schellenberg & Hallam (NM II no. 20, pp. 202-209) have investigated the impact of popular music on
schoolchildren’s cognitive abilites.
Grewe et al. (NM II no. 49, pp. 446-449) include Pop, Rock, Death Metal, and Bossa Nova in a study
of strong emotions that arouse chills.
Western popular music, NM IIII
Honing et al. (NM III no. 9, pp. 93-96) apply a rhythmic rock pattern in studies of sensitivity to meter
in adults and newborn infants.
Sevdalis & Keller (NM III no. 73, pp. 499-502) have investigated body motion related to musical ex-
cerpts from drum and bass, folk and jazz music.
In addition to these 5 papers, 14 papers report the inclusion of unspecifed popular music.
The scarcity of studies of rock music and other groove-based music genres in the conference pro-
ceedings is conspicuous. Future studies of the complex timbres of rock music and the strong bodily
impact of techno music and related genres may yield interesting results.^26
Additional studies
Only a selection of studies concerning neuroscience and music have been reviewed in the confer-
ences. As a supplement to the conference papers, a number of studies of non-classical music, pub-
lished elsewhere, can be noted:
Vuust et al. (2005, 2006) have investigated polyrhythms in jazz music.^27
Limb & Braun (2008) have conducted an fMRI study of keyboard jazz improvisation.
Witek has investigated the emotional and physiological responses to groove-based music
(2009:573-582).
PET studies by Salimpoor et al. (2009, 2011) include various popular genres, specified as jazz, rock,
house, trance, post-rock, folk, international, and psychedelic trance. See chapter 6.
The study of polyphonic timbre by Alluri & Toiviainen (2010) is based on musical excerpts of Indian
popular music, encompassing genres such as pop, rock, and disco. The fMRI study by Alluri et al.
(2012) is based on Astor Piazzolla’s tango Adiós Nonino.
26 Eric Clarke (2005:55-61) discusses the perceptual and cognitive impact of stabiity and instability in rock music tim-
bres. Kreutz et al. (2012:460) suggest that the distortions of musical sound in rock music may be essential to its effect on
listeners. In the context of music therapy, Von Appen (2007:5-25) provides an informative introduction to the aesthetics of
popular music.
27 Cf. the paper presented by Vuust et al. at the Neurosciences and Music IV 2011, this chapter.