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New book explains how the brain learns to love music

Centre for Human-Centred Computing  Centre for Multimodal AI 

22 May 2025

Why does music move us so deeply, and why do different cultures hear it so differently? In Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn, published by Oxford University Press, cognitive scientist Dr Marcus Pearce explores how our brains learn to predict musical patterns through experience, arguing that perception, emotion, and enjoyment of music are shaped as much by culture as biology. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and music cognition, the book offers a compelling new framework for understanding how humans learn to appreciate music—and what this reveals about cultural evolution and the predictive nature of the mind.

People: Marcus PEARCE

Contact: Marcus Pearce
Email: marcus.pearce@qmul.ac.uk

Updated by: Marcus Pearce