About the Journal

Aims, scope, and background

Psychomusicology, A Journal of Research in Music Cognition publishes leading important material in the growing field of music perception and cognition. This field of scholarly endeavour was referred to, possibly for the first time in print, as psychomusicology by Otto Laske in 1975. The journal originated in 1981 as a response to the promise of a burgeoning new research area. The rapid expansion of knowledge can be attributed to many factors, among them:

• growth of cognitive science
• advances in the use of neuroimaging as a noninvasive tool for revealing brain function in general and about musical perception and cognition In particular
  
• increasing public presence of music through the Internet and via portable music playback devices
  
• music synthesis and creation possibilities on every desktop and laptop
  
• increasing numbers of university faculty conducting research in music perception and cognition
  
• increasing numbers of university courses in music perception and cognition
  
• advancing discipline of psycholinguistics for which music provides an important comparison
  
• growing field of developmental psychology and developmental neuroscience to which music contributes information about infant communication
  
• new emphasis on alternative medicines and the increasing attention to music therapy
  
• increasing globalization which directs attention to ethnomusicology in cultural cognition

This foundation for the journal Psychomusicology shows every sign of stability and expansion for years to come. Outlets for dissemination of the new findings are required. A journal such as Psychomusicology fulfils this need to disseminate the ever increasing research findings in the field of music perception, cognition and neuroscience.

The journal already has a 25-year history beginning with editor David Bryan Williams. With the recent retirment of editor, Jack A. Taylor, Annabel Cohen has taken on the editorship with Lauren Stewart, Bruno Repp, and Jay Dowling forming the Associate Editorial Board . With a fresh start the current Editorial Board aim for the highest standards of the journal. They aim to augment the quality and vitality of the journal so as to reflect well on authors who publish in Psychomusicology and so as to effectively advance the discipline as a whole. The journal will go to a new on-line format while retaining print copies for those who wish to receive them.

The Editorial Board welcomes returning and new subscribers and all our readers, and we encourage researchers in this field to submit their work to Psychomusicology.

Editor
Annabel J. Cohen
Professor of Psychology
University of Prince Edward Island

Associate Editors
Jay Dowling
Professor of Psychology
University of Texas, Dallas

Bruno H. Repp
Senior Scientist
Haskins Laboratory, New Haven,

Lauren Stewart
Director, MSc in Music, Mind, and Brain
Goldsmiths College, Univ. of London

Former Editors
David B. Williams, Founding Editor, 1981
Randy Pembrook
Jack A. Taylor

Associate Editor Emeritus
James C. Carlsen

Graphics, Notation and Desktop Publishing
Robert Drew
e-mail: fretworks@gmail.com

Subscriptions and Business Office
Ellen Sherren
e-mail: esherren@gmail.com

Psychomusicology logo created by James Carlsen.