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Director: Bill Thompson

John Bispham

title	Doctoral Student
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Information

John Bispham is completing his PhD at the MSP lab in the area of Music Psychology. His research aims to describe music's putative "design features" - those psychological, physiological, and behavioural features that distinguish music from other forms of human and animal communication. The implications of this research are discussed primarily within an evolutionary framework but extend also to other research areas where music has been shown to be uniquely or particularly efficacious.

John previously completed an MPhil Degree in Musicology at the University of Cambridge and a Postgraduate Diploma in Vocal and Opera Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music. Further details on John's research interests and publications are available at www.johnbispham.com.

Thenille Braun

title	Doctoral Student
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Information

Thenille Braun Janzen is completing her Phd candidature in a Cotutelle and Joint Phd Program at Macquarie University and the University of São Paulo (Brazil). Her research area involves human timing and expectancy in music. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of São Paulo.

Frank A. Russo

title	Honorary Member and Collaborator
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Information

Frank A. Russo is Director of the SMART lab and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. He was a post doctoral fellow with Professor Thompson from 2002-2006. His research explores questions at the intersection of music, technology, and cognitive science.

Link for Frank A. Russo: http://www.psych.ryerson.ca/russo

Link for SMART lab: http://www.ryerson.ca/smart

Caroline Palmer

title	Honorary Member and Partner Investigator
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Information

Caroline Palmer is Professor and Canada Research Chair, McGill University, Canada. Among other topics, her research focuses on the time course of movements that occur in music performance. She is a Partner Investigator on ARC DP0987182: Vocal Emotional Communication. For more detailed information, see her website: http://www.mcgill.ca/spl/palmer/

Alex Chilvers

title	Research Officer
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Information

Alex Chilvers joined the lab in 2009. Since then, he has focused on developing software tools to perform automated acoustic analyses and manipulations of sound recordings.

Alex has a Bachelor of Information Technology (Honours) from Macquarie University and is currently studying Composition full-time at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

More information on Alex is available at www.alexchilvers.com.

Lincoln Colling

title	Doctoral Student
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Information

Lincoln Colling is a PhD candidate working on Joint Action in Music. He has a BSc and an MSc in Psychology from the University of Auckland, where he conducted event-related potential studies of auditory scene analysis with Dr Blake Johnson and Dr Michael Hautus.

In his current work at Macquarie University with Dr Bill Thompson and Dr John Sutton, he is investigating the role of sensory-motor interactions in joint action within the context of music performance.

Rachel Bennetts

title	Motion Capture Research Coordinator
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Information

Rachel Bennetts is a PhD student in the Psychology Department of the University of Western Sydney, studying the effects of motion on facial processing. She is primarily involved in assisting on experiments that involve motion capture.

Varghese Peter

title	Honorary Member
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Information

Varghese Peter completed his PhD on prosody in speech and music with Genevieve McArthur. He has BSc and MSc in Speech and Hearing from University of Mysore. He is now a post-doctoral researcher in linguistics at Macquarie University.

Lena Quinto

title	Doctoral Student
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Information

Lena Quinto is a PhD candidate working on shared deficits in speech (aprosody) and music (amusia). As a research assistant, she assists in preparation and running of capture sessions in the motion capture lab. Lena completed her Master's Degree in Psychology at the University of Toronto.

Paolo Ammirante

title	Honorary Member and Collaborator
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Information

Paolo Ammirante completed his PhD candidate at the MSP lab in 2010, and is now doing post-doctoral research at Ryerson University, Toronto at the SMART lab with Frank Russo. He has a BFA in music from York University and a Master's degree in music performance from the University of Toronto.

Linda Sigmundsdottir

title	Doctoral Student
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Linda Sigmundsdottir is working towards the completion of a Doctor of Psychology degree, specialising in Clinical Neuropsychology. She completed a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) degree at Macquarie University in 2007. Her honours work (conducted with Professor Bill Thompson) investigated rhythmic impairments in people with congenital amusia. Her current research involves the investigation of sound and music processing in auditory synaesthesia. This research is being conducted with Professor Bill Thompson and Dr. Anina Rich from the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS).

Bill Thompson

title	Director
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telephone	02 9850 9949
mail	Professor Bill Thompson Department of Psychology Macquarie University NSW 2109 Australia

Information

Bill Thompson is the Director of the Music, Sound and Performance Lab. He is also President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (Jan 2007-Jan 2009), Editor of the journal Empirical Musicology Review, and Associate Editor of the journal Music Perception. He is author of the book "Music, Thought and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music" (released October 2008, Oxford University Press, 320 pages).

Bill is a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, and an Honorary Associate member of the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science. For information about audition and useful links, go to the Auditory List or to the Music Cognition Resource Center.

Music Perception & Cognition

Music is a unique but puzzling part of our lives. We turn on the radio while driving our car; we sing in the shower; we dance to music, shop to music, and attend funerals accompanied by music. How can we understand the role of music in our lives, and its relation to language, feelings, and ideas? How and why did music evolve as a human cognitive capacity?

We can gain a general understanding of music by thinking critically about our personal experiences with music. However, this introspective method leaves many questions unanswered. For this reason, researchers and scholars have developed and refined a range of strategies for studying music and music experience. These research tools provide a means for understanding some of the most subtle and complex aspects of the relation between music, thought, and feeling, yielding an exciting body of knowledge that we call "music perception and cognition."

Graduate Opportunities

Graduates with degrees in music or psychology may apply for postgraduate opportunities. Please email bill.thompson@psy.mq.edu.au with enquiries. An honours degree in psychology or equivalent is normally needed to be competitive for admission to the program.

Curriculum Vitae

Bill Thompson's 2010 curriculum vitae can be found here.

Music Compositions & Performances

• Composed & performed music for theatre production: Perfect Pie. Tarragon theatre, Jan 2000.


• Composed & performed music for feature-film: Desire. Commercial release, 2000.


• Composed & performed music for feature-film: Dragon's Egg. 1999 on TVO, BBC.


• Composed & performed music for feature-film: Shoemaker.Commercial release, 1997 (Carlton cinema), Toronto Film Festival, 1996, Sydney Film festival, 1997, London (England) Film Festival, 1997.


• Composed & performed theatre music & songs for: Sled,Tarragon Theatre, January 1996.


• Composed & performed film music for short: The Feeler,Canadian Film Centre, Toronto Film Festival, Montreal Film Festival, 1995.


• Composed & performed film music for short: Sparky's Shoes,Canadian Film Centre, Vancouver Film Festival, 1994.


• Composed & performed film music for short: Putty Worm,Canadian Film Centre, Toronto Film Festival, 1993.


• Composed & performed theatre music for: Silver Dagger,St. Lawrence Centre, Toronto & The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Winter season, 1992/1993.


• Composed & performed radio-play music for: "Sugarcane", CBC Radio, July, 1992.


• Composed theatre music for: Hedda Gabler,Shaw Festival, Summer season, 1991.


• Composed & performed radio-play music for: "White Sand", CBC Radio, May, 1991.


• Composed & performed theatre music for: Lion in the Street,World Stage Festival, Du Maurier Theatre centre, Harbourfront, June 2-5, 1990 & Tarragon Theatre, Nov-Dec, 1990.

Samples of Bill's Music

• Sample 1


• Sample 2


• Sample 3


• Sample 4


• Sample 5


• Sample 6

Steven R. Livingstone

title	Honorary Member
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telephone	+61 (0)2 9850 4081
mail	Steven R. Livingstone Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Psychology Macquarie University NSW 2109

Information

Steven R. Livingstone was manager of the Music, Sound and Performance Lab between January 2007 until October 2008, and was instrumental in establishing the motion capture lab and running the first set of investigations. Steven received his PhD in Computer Science (2008) from The University of Queensland. His dissertation, completed under the supervision of Ralf Muhlberger and Andrew Brown, produced a computational model for changing the perceived emotions of music through the control of score and performance. Steven received his undergraduate training in Information Technology (2003), and Science (physics, 2000) from The University of Queensland. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University working on motion capture with Canada Research Chair and professor Caroline Palmer.