pression in a group of participants diagnosed with amusia, and a control group.
In an earlier study, Peretz et al. (NM I, no. 5, pp. 58-75) assessed amusia or ”tone-deafness”
by means of a series of tests, the Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). The test
tasks consisted of judging whether two melodies were identical or different. Various types of melo-
dies allowed for assessing the perception of melodic contour, intervals, scale, rhythm, meter, and
recognition memory. The MBEA has proved to be a reliable tool for identifying disorders in music rec-
ognition in Western listeners.
The original MBEA test material encompassed melodies played in synthesized piano timbre.
For the present study, Sloboda, Wise and Peretz developed a new version of the test material. A
professional violinist recorded five performances of each melody in the MBEA. These performances
varied by emotional intention: happy, very happy, sad, very sad, and neutral. The test consisted of
comparing two performances of the same tune, and the test task was to judge whether the emotion
conveyed was the same or different. The results of this test showed that the participants diagnosed
with amusia performed equally well as the controls (p. 259). This result stood in stark contrast to pre-
vious MBEA tests.
The authors conlude that amusic individuals retain the ability to process the variations in articu-
lation, tempo, and timbre, which constitute the basis for emotional expression in music. They consid-
er the emotion test a valuable addition to the Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia.
Music therapy
At the conference, Luisa Lopez (NM II, pp. 269-270) introduced a round table, which was designed
to provide a picture of the efforts of music therapy research to the audience of critical neuroscien-
tists. She pointed out that typical articles on music therapy had not provided reliable evidence, as
they were characterized by small samples, lack of a proper control group, and subjective measure-
ment protocols. However, she acknowledged the value of studies analyzed in the Cochrane Review
by Gold et al. (2005). This review analyzes the effects of music therapy for people with serious men-
tal illnesses such as schizophrenia. It includes only four studies, which are randomized controlled
trials (RCT), and excludes 30 other potential relevant studies according to specific criteria.
In their introduction, the conference organizers voiced their claim for scientific rigor in music
therapy research, ”to start the validation of evidence-based results of methods where music practice
is effectively used in rehabilitation techniques” (NM II, xii).
The conference proceedings included a number of the round table presentations:
Empirical music therapy research
Hillecke et al. (NM II no. 28, pp. 271-282) emphasize the urgent need for the application of empirical
research methods to studying the ingredients of music therapy. They point out the lack of theoretical
agreement in the field, but they have also observed that the field of outcome studies is growing, and
find support for the standpoint that music represents a useful tool in the treatment of different mental
and somatic diseases. They present a survey of research strategies, outline a number of problems
occurring in music therapy studies, and call attention to a number of meta-analytical studies in the
field. Finally, they present a model for the most effective ingredients in music therapy. This model
includes five factors; modulation of attention, emotion, cognition, behavior, and communication (p.
271).
Randomized controlled studies in music therapy
In continuation, Nickel, Hillecke et al. (NM II no. 29, pp. 283-293) present three randomized controlled
studies based on the Heidelberg model, which describes manualized music therapy concepts for de-
fined patient populations. Their results indicate that music therapy is an effective intervention for pa-
tients with chronic pain, childen with migraine, and patients suffering from chronic tinnitus (p. 283).