News

May 2024: Our publication in Science Advances has received media coverage in UB Now, the New York Times, and other outlets.
APS Fellows – Peter Pfordresher was named a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in Feb. 2024.
How music and language are connected in your brain – Peter Pfordresher and Chihiro Honda published an article on the DuoLingo blog in December, 2023.
Music can help people learn a second  language, study suggests. – UBNow features our work on pitch imitation.
In June 2022, Peter Pfordresher participated in a panel discussion with opera singer Rene Fleming on the topic of Music and the Mind.
If you think you can’t sing, we have science behind it – Dr. Pfordresher joined Irish news broadcaster Fran Curry on the Tipp Today show to discuss the science behind why people are tone-deaf.
The surprising science behind tone deafness – Dr. Pfordresher joined Irish news broadcaster Pat Kenny to discuss the surprising science behind tone-deafness in a newstalk podcast.
BBC World Service – CrowdScience, Can I learn to sing in tune? – Dr Pfordresher discusses why are some people are tone deaf – is it a problem in the ears, the throat or the brain? And is singing ability down to raw talent, or can you improve with practice?
VOCAL MISTUNING AND THE ORIGIN OF MUSICAL SCALES – Science Daily reports on a paper by Peter Pfordresher and Steven Brown that considers a possible link between singing accuracy and spacing of notes in musical scales.
ONLINE SINGING TEST GAUGES ACCURACY OF PITCH – Dr. Pfordrehser was interviewed by NPR station WBFO concerning the Seattle Singing Accuracy Protocol, from a collaboration with Steven Demorest.
BAD SINGER – A popular science book by Tim Falconer discusses research on singing accuracy, including research from APAL.

THE BALLAD OF THE TIN EARS – Dr. Pfordrehser, along with several other researchers, were interviewed by Tim Falconer on the CBC radio show “Ideas: with Paul Kennedy”.

HITTING ALL THE RIGHT NOTES – UB Reporter interviews Dr. Pfordresher on his involvement designing the Seattle Singing Accuracy Protocol, a battery of tests aimed at evaluating one’s own singing accuracy.

DR. PETER PFORDRESHER AND SINGING ACCURACY – A look at how the Seattle Singing Accuracy Protocol could help music educators.

ARTVOICE PODCAST – A podcast interview with Dr. Pfordresher and the lab on our research into poor pitch singing.

TONE DEAFNESS AND BAD SINGING MAY NOT GO HAND IN HAND – Are bad singers truly tone deaf? Scientific American summarizes recent work from our lab.

INVESTIGATING MUSIC AND THE MIND – Meet Dr. Pfordresher and learn about his interest in music psychology.

ZEIT ONLINE – Research on group singing was featured in the German magazine DIE ZEIT. You can read the English translation here.

THE TUNE WRECKERS – Science News features our work on poor pitch singing.

May 2024

  • Elizabeth Goldstein received high honors from the Department of Psychology for her thesis entitled “Does the emotional content of a stimulus affect accuracy in pitch imitation?”
  • Congrats to undergraduate honor student, Elizabeth Goldstein, for presenting a poster at the UB Academic Excellence!
  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for receiving the Rosatti Award from the UB Psychology Department!

April 2024

  • Congrats to undergraduate honor student, Elizabeth Goldstein, for presenting a poster at the Western Psychological Association!
  • Elizabeth Goldstein performed the flute at the UB Flute Recital.

June 2023:

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for having her paper entitled The effect of musical training and language background on vocal imitation of pitch in speech and song accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

May 2023:

  • Congrats to undergraduate research assistant, Mythili Thamilchelvam, for successfully defending her Honor’s Thesis and earning Highest Honors (the highest level of Honor awarded to a student who successfully writes and defends a Honor’s thesis)! Mythili was also the runner-up for the Feldman-Cohen Award!

April 2023:

  • Congrats to graduate student, David Vollweiler, for successfully defending his Master’s Thesis entitled “Just can’t get you out of my head: Associations between involuntary musical imagery and singing accuracy”!   
  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for having her paper entitled An acoustic analysis and comparison between remotely collected and in-person laboratory collected data in vocal imitation of pitch for publication in the journal Auditory Perception & Cognition!                             
  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for receiving a travel award to present a talk entitled The effects of pitch memory and imagery ability on vocal pitch imitation and a poster entitled The effect of music familiarity and expertise on neural connectivity: Retrospective analyses of a cross-cultural music comprehension study at ICMPC17-APSCOM7 this August!

March 2023:

  • Congrats to graduate student, David Vollweiler, for accepting an offer of Admission to a Ph.D. program in Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas beginning this Fall!

November 2022:

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for being selected as a Trainee Representative for the Society of Music Perception and Cognition beginning January 2023!

August 2022:

  • Congrats to graduate students: Nicole Coleman, Chihiro Honda, and David Vollweiler for presenting their talks at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition in Portland, OR!
  • Congrats to graduate student, Yan Chen, for presenting her poster at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition in Portland, OR!

April 2022

  • Congrats to graduate student, Nicole Coleman, for presenting a talk at the ESM/UR/Cornell/Buffalo Music Cognition Symposium!

November 2021

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action Meeting!

July 2021

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition!

May 2021:                             

  • Congrats to undergraduate research assistant, David Vollweiler, for successfully defending his Honor’s Thesis and earning High Honors! 

April 2021

  • Congrats to undergraduate student, David Vollweiler, for presenting a poster at the University at Buffalo Celebration of Student Academic Excellence
  • Congrats to undergraduate student, David Vollweiler, for presenting a talk at the Western New York Undergraduate Psychology Conference and at the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference!

March 2021

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the ESM/UR/Cornell/Buffalo Music Cognition Symposium!

November 2019

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting her poster at the Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action Meeting in Montreal!

August 2019

  • Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting her poster at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition!