Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Lauren Stewart BSc MSc PhD

My research is conducted within the Music, Mind and Brain group within the Psychology Department, Goldsmiths, University of London where I am director of the MSc in Music, Mind and Brain. I also convene a seminar series, known as the Music and Brain Club.

Members of the Group

Fang Liu
Victoria Williamson
Diana Omigie
Daniel Müllensiefen

Research interests

My current research falls broadly within the two following areas:

Fractionating the Musical Mind: Insights from Congenital Amusia

A small percentage of the population report a lifelong failure to recognize familiar tunes or tell one tune from another, frequently complain that music sounds like a “din” and often avoid the many social situations in which music plays a crucial role. Such individuals, termed ‘congenitally amusic’, have lifelong difficulties with music and perform poorly on a standardized battery of musical listening tasks (Peretz, 2003). This disorder provides us with the opportunity to investigate the cognitive architecture of music, and its relation to other domains, such as language and spatial cognition. Using a large group of congenitally amusic individuals, recruited via an online musical listening test (www.delosis.com/listening/home.html), my present research aims to elucidate precisely which perceptual and cognitive mechanisms are at fault in amusia, whether disordered musical processing has implications for language and the extent to which such difficulties can impact upon sociocultural and affective functioning.  This work is carried out in collaboration with Professor Tim Griffiths at Newcastle University and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

 

In the Media

The Guardian (July, 2007)
BBC Radio 4 (December, 2006) [audio] 
The Times (September, 2006)
BBC News Website (October, 2006)
BBC Radio 4 (January, 2006) [audio]      
New York Public Radio (October, 2005) [audio]

Musicians as a Model of Neuroplasticity

Professional pianists must bimanually co-ordinate the production of up to 1800 notes per minute, integrate auditory and sensori-motor information and constantly monitor for errors in performance. The development of these cognitive abilities is the result of intense practise from an early age and provides an ideal model for investigating learning-induced plasticity.  My work has focused specifically on the acquisition of musical literacy, asking questions about the cognitive representation of musical notation and the changes that occur in the brain as musical notation goes from being an impenetrable jumble of dots and lines, into a meaningful code for performance. I am currently interested in examining auditory-motor interactions in trained musicians.

Selected publications

Publications

Empirical Papers

Stewart, L. Von Kriegstein, K., Dalla Bella, S., Warren, J.D. & Griffiths, T. (2009). Disorders of Musical Cognition. In Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. S. Hallam, I. Cross & M. Thaut, Eds.:184-196. Oxford University Press. New York.

Garrido, L., Eisner, F., McGettigan, C., Stewart, L., Sauter, D., Hanley, J.R., Schweinberger, S.R., Warren, J., Duchaine, B. (2009). Developmental phonagnosia: A Selective Deficit of Vocal Identity Recognition [pdf] Neuropsychologia 47(1); 123-131

McDonald, C., & Stewart, L. (2008). Uses and Functions of Music in Congenital Amusia [pdf] Music Perception, 25 (4); 345-355.

Stewart L., Overath T, Warren JD, Foxton JM, Griffiths TD (2008). fMRI Evidence for a Cortical Hierarchy of Pitch Pattern Processing [pdf] PLoS ONE 3(1): e1470. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001470.

Griffiths, T.D., Kumar, S., Warren, J.D., Stewart, L., Stephan, K.E., Friston, K.J. (2007). Approaches to the Cortical Analysis of Auditory Objects [pdf] Hearing Research 229 (1); 46-53

Stewart, L. Von Kriegstein, K., Warren, J.D. & Griffiths, T. (2006). Disorders of Musical Listening [pdf] Brain, 129; 2533-2553

Stewart, L., Walsh, V. & Frith, U. (2004).  Reading music modifies spatial mapping in pianists [pdf] Perception & Psychophysics, 662; 183-195

Stewart, L., Henson, R., Kampe, K., Walsh, V., Turner, R. & Frith, U. (2003) Becoming a pianist: brain changes associated with learning to read and play music [pdf] Neuroimage, 20; 71-83

Stewart, L.,  Henson, R., Kampe, K., Walsh, V., Turner, R. & Frith, U. (2003). An fMRI study of musical literacy acquisition [pdf] Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 999; 204-208

Stewart, L., Walsh, V., Frith, U., & Rothwell, J.C. (2001). TMS produces two dissociable types of speech disruption [pdf] Neuroimage 13; 472-478

Stewart, L., Walsh, V., Frith, U., & Rothwell, J.C. (2001). Transcranial magnetic stimulation produces speech arrest but not song arrest [pdf] Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930; 433-435

Stewart, L., Walsh, V. & Rothwell, J.C. (2001). Motor and phosphene thresholds: a TMS correlation study [pdf] Neuropsychologia 34 (4); 114-119

Stewart, L., Ellison, A., Walsh, V. & Cowey, A. (2001). The role of transcranial magnetic stimulation in studies of vision, attention and language. [pdf] Acta Psychologica 107; 275 – 291

Stewart, L., Meyer, B.U. , Frith, U. & Rothwell, J. (2000). Left Posterior BA37 is involved in object recognition: a TMS study [pdf] Neuropsychologia 39 (1); 1-6

Stewart, L., and Walsh, V. (2000). Probing the mind with magnetism [pdf]. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, A Trends Guide 83 – 86

Stewart, L., Battelli, L., Walsh, V. & Cowey, A. (1999). Motion perception and perceptual learning studied by magnetic stimulation. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology 51; 334 – 350

Reviews, Book Chapters, Commentaries

Stewart, L. (2008). Fractionating the Musical Mind: Insights from Congenital Amusia [pdf] Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 18; 127-130.

Stewart, L. (2008). Do musicians have different brains? Clinical Medicine, 8; 304-308.

Stewart, L.& Williamon, A. (2008). What are the implications of neuroscience for musical education? [pdf]. Educational Research, 50(2), 177–186.

Stewart, L. & Walsh, V. (2007). Music Perception: Sounds Lost in Space. Current Biology; [pdf] 17(20); R892-R893

Stewart, L. (2008). Music Reading: A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach. Music and Dyslexia: A Positive Approach, Miles, Westcombe & Dichfield, Eds.162-170, Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9780470065570.

Stewart, L.  (2006). Congenital Amusia [pdf] Current Biology, 16(21); R904-6

Stewart, L. & Walsh, V. (2006). Transcranial magnetic stimulation in cognitive neuroscience. Methods in Mind, edited Senior, C., Russell, T. & Gazzaniga, MIT press

Stewart, L. (2005). A Neurocognitive approach to music reading. [pdf] Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1060; 377-386

Stewart, L. (2005). Neurocognitive studies of musical literacy acquisition. Musicae Scientiae, 9 (2); 223-237

Stewart, L. and Walsh,V. (2005). Infant learning: music and the baby brain. [pdf] Current Biology 15(21); R882-884

Stewart, L. (2004). Tuning the musical brain. Piano Professional, April; 9-13

Backhouse, G., Bishop-Liebler, P., Frith, U. & Stewart, L. (2003).  Music, dyslexia and the brain PATOSS, (162); 9- 14

Ellison, A., Stewart, L .,Cowey, A. & Walsh, V. (2003). Magnetic Simulation Studies of Vision Visual Neuropsychology, edited Fahle, M. & Greenlee, M., OUP (163 – 176)

Stewart, L. & Walsh, V. (2002). Congenital amusia: all the songs sound the same. [pdf] Current Biology 12(12); R420-1

Stewart, L. (2002). Zoning in on music and the brain. [pdf] Trends in Cognitive Sciences (611); 451

Stewart, L. (2002).  Probing perceptual asynchrony [pdf] Trends in Cognitive Sciences (64); 153

Stewart, L. & Walsh, V. (2001). Music of the hemispheres [pdf] Current Biology 11(4); R125 -127

Stewart, L. (2001). Priming: a tool for imaging [pdf] Trends in Cognitive Sciences (512); 511

Stewart, L. (2001).  Attending and intending [pdf] Trends in Cognitive Sciences (57); 284

Stewart L. (2001).  Universal dyslexia? [pdf] Trends in Cognitive Sciences (55); 188

Stewart L.   , Battelli, L., Walsh, V. & Cowey, A. (1999) Motion perception and perceptual learning studied by magnetic stimulation [pdf] Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology 51; 334-350

Book Reviews

Stewart, L.  (2007). Musical Thrills and Chills [pdf] (Book Review of Sweet Anticipation, by David Huron) Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(1); 5-6

Stewart, L. (2004). Through the eyes of a child (Book Review of Descartes’ Baby, by Paul Bloom). New Scientist, May

Television and video output

In the Media

The Guardian (July, 2007)
BBC Radio 4 (December, 2006) [audio] 
The Times (September, 2006)
BBC News Website (October, 2006)
BBC Radio 4 (January, 2006) [audio]      
New York Public Radio (October, 2005) [audio]