At our station, we explore how music is shaped by the brain, the body, and social interaction. Drawing on evolutionary psychology, cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and computational modelling, we investigate how humans perceive, reproduce, and share musical structure and emotion. We ask how cognitive constraints, learning mechanisms, and cultural transmission give rise to the musical systems we encounter across societies.

We introduce the scientific tools used to study music empirically — from controlled behavioural experiments and brain-based approaches to quantitative analysis and data-driven modelling of musical patterns. Visitors can take part in simplified versions of two of our research paradigms: one examining how people reproduce musical material, and another investigating how we perceive and interpret emotion in songs.

Together, these demonstrations show that music is not just sound, but a dynamic process emerging within individual minds and between interacting people.