Professor Daniel Müllensiefen

Staff details

Position

Emeritus Professor

I'm a music psychologist and Co-Director of the MSc in Music, Mind, and Brain.

I'm a Professor in Psychology at Goldsmiths and also a research fellow with the University of Music, Drama, and Media at Hannover, Germany.

I'm interested in (almost) all questions relating to music psychology, ranging from industry-related work on music and advertising (working as Scientist in Residence with adam&eveDDB) to individual differences in musical ability and to musical memory and plagiarism where I have served as an expert witness in many cases.

I was awarded the prestigious Anneliese-Maier award by the Humboldt- Foundation in 2016 and I'm the editor of the international open-access journal Empirical Musicology Review. I am currently heading the LongGold project, a longitudinal study on the development of musical and other cognitive and social abilities during adolescence.

Research interests

My main themes of research relate to the study of the development of musical abilities and the psychometrics of music, computational and statistical models of music perception, cognitive biases in musical judgement and the behavioural economics of music. For full details on projects and research interests see.

Here are some areas that I've worked on in the past:

Memory for Music, Musical Similarity Perception, Music in Advertising, Audiobranding, Musical Sophistication, Development of Musical Abilities, Judgement and Decision Making in Music, Individual Differences and Measurement of Musical Skills, Cognitive Issues Related to Music Copyright

Featured publications

2014: The Musicality of Non-Musicians: An Index for Assessing Musical Sophistication in the General Population.

2017: Applying modern psychometric techniques to melodic discrimination testing: Item response theory, computerised adaptive testing, and automatic item ge

2017: The repeated recording illusion: The effects of extrinsic and individual difference factors on musical judgements

2016: Dissecting an Earworm: Melodic Features and Song Popularity Predict Involuntary Musical Imagery

2004: Cognitive Adequacy in the Measurement of Melodic Similarity: Algorithmic vs. Human Judgments

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

Statistical Methods in Music Corpus Studies: Application, Use Cases, and Best Practice Examples Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Frieler, Klaus. 2022. Statistical Methods in Music Corpus Studies: Application, Use Cases, and Best Practice Examples. In: Daniel Shanahan; John Ashley Burgoyne and Ian Quinn, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Corpus Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190945442
Musikalische Fertigkeiten und ihre Messbarkeit Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Hemming, Jan. 2017. Musikalische Fertigkeiten und ihre Messbarkeit. In: Andreas C. Lehmann, and Reinhard Kopiez,, eds. Handbuch Musikpsychologie. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Radio Station Jingles: How statistical learning applies to a special genre of audio logos. Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Egermann, H; and Burrows, S. 2015. Radio Station Jingles: How statistical learning applies to a special genre of audio logos. In: K Bronner; R Hirt and C Ringe, eds. Audio Branding Yearbook 2014/2015. Nomos, pp. 53-72. ISBN 978-3-8452-6081-5

Music, Brands, and Advertising: Testing what works. Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Baker, D. 2015. Music, Brands, and Advertising: Testing what works. In: K Bronner; R Hirt and C Ringe, eds. Audio Branding Yearbook 2014/2015. Nomos. ISBN 978-3-8487-1073-7
Is it the song and not the singer? Hit song prediction using structural features of melodies. Frieler, K; Jakubowski, Kelly ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2015. Is it the song and not the singer? Hit song prediction using structural features of melodies. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Yearbook of the German Society for Music Psychology. 24 , pp. 41-54
Perceptual Dimensions of Short Audio Clips and Corresponding Timbre Features Musil, Jason Jiri; Elnusairi, Budr; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2013. Perceptual Dimensions of Short Audio Clips and Corresponding Timbre Features. In: Mitsuko Aramaki; Mathieu Barthet; Richard Kronland-Martinet and Sølvi Ystad, eds. From Sounds to Music and Emotions. III (7900) Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 214-227. ISBN 978-3-642-41248-6
Implicit and Explicit Effects of Music on Brand Perception in TV Ads Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Davies, Christopher; Dossman, Lauri; Hansen, Jon Ludvig; and Pickering, Alan . 2013. Implicit and Explicit Effects of Music on Brand Perception in TV Ads. In: C Ringe; K Bronner and R Hirt, eds. Audio Branding Academy Yearbook 2012/2013. Hamburg: Audio Branding Academy, pp. 139-153. ISBN 9783832978785
Earworms from three angles Williamson, Victoria J. ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2012. Earworms from three angles. In: E Cambouropoulos,; C Tsougras; P Mavromatis and K Pastias, eds. Proceedings of the ICMPC -‐ ESCOM 2012 Joint Conference: 12th Biennial International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition 8th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. Thessaloniki: School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessalonki, pp. 1124-1133. ISBN 978 - 960 - 99845 - 1 - 5
The perception of similarity in court cases of melodic plagiarism and a review of measures of melodic similarity Wolf, Anna; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2012. The perception of similarity in court cases of melodic plagiarism and a review of measures of melodic similarity. In: J Wewers and U Seifert, eds. Under Construction: Trans- and Interdisciplinary Routes in Music Research. Proceedings of SysMus11, Cologne 2011. Osnabrück Music, pp. 215-222. ISBN 978-3-940255-32-7
Sloboda & Parker's recall paradigm for melodic memory: a new computational perspective Wiggins, Geraint ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2011. Sloboda & Parker's recall paradigm for melodic memory: a new computational perspective. In: Irene Deliege and Jane Davidson, eds. Music and the Mind: Essays in honour of John Sloboda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 161-188. ISBN 978-0-19-958156-6
Statistical techniques in music psychology: An update Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2010. Statistical techniques in music psychology: An update. In: Rolf Bader; Christiane Neuhaus and Ulrich Morgenstern, eds. Concepts, Experiments, and Fieldwork: Studies in Systematic Musicology and Ethnomusicology. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 193-215. ISBN 978-3-631-58902-1
Melodic Grouping in Music Information Retrieval: New Methods and Applications Pearce, Marcus T. ; Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Wiggins, Geraint . 2010. Melodic Grouping in Music Information Retrieval: New Methods and Applications. In: Zbigniew W. Ras and Alicja Wieczorkowska, eds. Advances in Music Information Retrieval Advances in Music Information Retrieval. 274 Berlin and New York: Springer, pp. 365-390. ISBN 978-3-642-11673-5
Statistical techniques in music psychology: An update Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2009. Statistical techniques in music psychology: An update. In: R Bader; C Neuhaus and C Morgenstern, eds. Concepts, Experiments, and Fieldwork: Studies in Systematic Musicology. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 193-215. ISBN 978-3-631-58902-1
Bayesian Model Selection for Harmonic Labelling Rhodes, Christophe ; Lewis, David ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2009. Bayesian Model Selection for Harmonic Labelling. In: Timour Klouche and Thomas Noll, eds. Mathematics and Computation in Music. 37 Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp. 107-116. ISBN 9783642045783
Computational Modelling of Music Cognition and Musical Creativity Wiggins, Geraint ; Pearce, Marcus T. ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2009. Computational Modelling of Music Cognition and Musical Creativity. In: Roger T. Dean, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 383-420. ISBN 978-0-19-533161-5
High-level feature descriptors and corpus-based musicology: Techniques for modelling music cognition Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Wiggins, Geraint ; and Lewis, Martin. 2008. High-level feature descriptors and corpus-based musicology: Techniques for modelling music cognition. In: Albrecht Schneider, ed. Systematic and Comparative Musicology: Concepts, Methods, Findings. 24 Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 133-155. ISBN 978-3-631-57953-4
Modeling memory for melodies Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Hennig, Christian. 2006. Modeling memory for melodies. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. From Data and Information Analysis to Knowledge Engineering. Springer, pp. 732-739.
What Makes the Difference? Pop Music Stars and TV Talent Show Contestants in Adolescents' Judgements Lothwesen, Kai; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2005. What Makes the Difference? Pop Music Stars and TV Talent Show Contestants in Adolescents' Judgements. In: Kari Kallioniemi; Kimi Kärki; Janne Mäkelä and Hannu Salmi, eds. History of Stardom reconsidered: The refereed proceedings of the inaugural conference of IIPC, University of Turku, 9-11.11.2006. 1 Turku: International Institute for Popular Culture. ISBN 978-951-29-3472-0

Article

Individual differences in auditory scene analysis abilities in music and speech Hake, Robin; Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Siedenburg, Kai. 2025. Individual differences in auditory scene analysis abilities in music and speech. Scientific Reports, 15, 24048. ISSN 2045-2322
The Influence of Psychosocial Skills on the Development of Musical Abilities: Cross-Sectional Results From Secondary School Pupils in Latvia Voitova, TatjanaORCID logo; Bernhofs, ValdisORCID logo; and Müllensiefen, Daniel ORCID logo . 2025. The Influence of Psychosocial Skills on the Development of Musical Abilities: Cross-Sectional Results From Secondary School Pupils in Latvia. Gifted Child Quarterly, 69(2), pp. 184-201. ISSN 0016-9862
Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Brazilian Portuguese Version of the Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI) Pinto, Camila; Orgs, Guido; Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Pagnussat, Aline S.. 2025. Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Brazilian Portuguese Version of the Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index (Gold-DSI). Brazilian Journal of Motor Behavior, 19(1), e434. ISSN 1980-5586

Conference or Workshop Item

Can correlations imply causation? Causal modeling and music psychology research. Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Floridou, Georgia A. ; and Jakubowski, Kelly . 2015. 'Can correlations imply causation? Causal modeling and music psychology research.'. In: Ninth Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. Manchester, United Kingdom.
Corpus Analysis Tools for Computational Hook Discovery. Van Balen, J; Burgoyne, J.A; Bountouridis, D; Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Veltkamp, R. 2015. 'Corpus Analysis Tools for Computational Hook Discovery.'. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) Conference 2014. Spain.
Multi-modal Musical Performance Capture Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Baker, David ; Lewis, Richard ; Rhodes, Christophe ; Fields, Ben ; and Crawford, Tim . 2014. 'Multi-modal Musical Performance Capture'. In: Digital Music Research Network (DMRN+9). London, United Kingdom.

Recognition of leitmotives in Richard Wagner's music: chroma distance and listener expertise Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Baker, David ; Rhodes, Christophe ; Crawford, Tim ; and Dreyfus, Laurence. 2014. 'Recognition of leitmotives in Richard Wagner's music: chroma distance and listener expertise'. In: European Conference on Data Analysis. Bremen, Germany 2 - 4 July 2014.
Singing from the same sheet: A new approach to measuring tune similarity and its legal implications Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Cason, Robert. 2012. 'Singing from the same sheet: A new approach to measuring tune similarity and its legal implications'. In: Seminar. Greenwich Univeristy, United Kingdom.
An empirical field study on sing-along behaviour in the North of England Pawley, Alisun R.; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2011. 'An empirical field study on sing-along behaviour in the North of England'. In: 7th International Conference on Music Since 1900. Lancaster, United Kingdom.
What's Behind Hits and False Alarms in Musical Memory? Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Halpern, Andrea. 2011. 'What's Behind Hits and False Alarms in Musical Memory?'. In: 4th Conference on the Neurosciences and Music. Edinburgh, United Kingdom June 9-11.
Involuntary musical imagery: Investigating musical features that predict earworms Finkel, S.; Jilka, Sagar R ; Williamson, Victoria J. ; Stewart, Lauren ; and Müllensiefen, Daniel . 2010. 'Involuntary musical imagery: Investigating musical features that predict earworms'. In: Third International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus10), University of Cambridge, UK. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Court decisions on music plagiarism and the predictive value of similarity algorithms Müllensiefen, Daniel ; and Pendzich, Marc. 2009. 'Court decisions on music plagiarism and the predictive value of similarity algorithms'. In: 7th Triennial Conference of the European Society of the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM 2009). University of Jyäskylä, Finland.
Treating Inherent Ambiguity in Ground Truth Data: Evaluating a Chord Labelling Algorithm Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Lewis, David ; Rhodes, Christophe ; and Wiggins, Geraint . 2007. 'Treating Inherent Ambiguity in Ground Truth Data: Evaluating a Chord Labelling Algorithm'. In: 8th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR). Vienna, Austria 23 - 27 September 2007.
Segmenting pop melodies: A model comparison approach Müllensiefen, Daniel ; Pearce, M.; Wiggins, Geraint ; and Frieler, K.. 2007. 'Segmenting pop melodies: A model comparison approach'. In: Conference for the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.