Come along to this free lecture by Dr Samuel Mehr, winner of the 2023 Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize, on the psychology of music.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously described music as "the universal language of mankind". Recent insights from cognitive and developmental psychology, cross-cultural data science, and evolutionary anthropology show that he had the right idea.
Royal Society Te Apārangi in partnership with the Canterbury Branch and the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes is delighted to host Dr Samuel Mehr to speak as the 2023 Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist. He will present findings from an array of studies that together demonstrate the striking universality of our musical minds.
Biography
Dr Samuel Mehr is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Auckland and a Rutherford Discovery Fellow. He is also an adjunct Associate Professor at the Yale University Child Study Center (USA). In addition to more traditional psychological experimental work in infants, children, and adults, he directs The Music Lab, established in 2017 at Harvard University’s Department of Psychology. The lab specialises in large-scale, gamified citizen science. You can participate at https://themusiclab.org.
To book a place and for more information, go to www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/our-musical-minds-christchurch.
Events
14 August, Christchurch: Ara, City Campus, Building DL, Room DLEC, 130 Madras St, Christchurch.
To book a place and for more information, go to www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/our-musical-minds-christchurch.
28 August, Nelson:Nelson College for Girls, 400 Trafalgar Street South, Nelson.
To book a place and for more information, go to events.humanitix.com/our-musical-minds-nelson.
Related content
We’ve made a partial replication of Building Science Concepts Book 18 Exploring Sound: Using Sound-makers and Musical Instruments. This article and interactive explore the big ideas and science concepts for Physical World levels 1 and 2.
Sound – lower primary is a collection of resources and notes for educators. You are welcome to copy the collection to your own profile, where you can edit and curate additional resources. The article Creating collections tells you how to get the most out of a collection.
Browse the wide range of resources under our sound topic for even more.
Activity ideas
We have lots of activities covering sound, the two below focus on music:
- Musical sounds – experience how striking, blowing, plucking and scraping create sounds and how these sounds can come together to make music.
- Investigating movement and sound with a pūrerehua – create and use a Māori musical instrument.
