OSPoM Seminar: Dr Jonna Vuoskoski
Organised by the Faculty of Music
‘Empathy, Entrainment and Social Bonding’
Dr Jonna Vuoskoski, University of Oslo, Norway
Music is an inherently social phenomenon. Even when we listen to music in solitude, social cognitive and affective processes play an important role in shaping our perception and experience. In my own work, I have explored how empathy in particular facilitates and modulates our engagement with music. Through recent empirical studies, I will demonstrate how empathy contributes to both affective attunement and bodily entrainment to music. Furthermore, I will argue that trait empathy may also facilitate the social bonding effects of musical engagement, whether in the context music listening or joint action. Finally, I will also discuss how feelings of being moved by music could be understood through a ‘social lens’ as experiences and appraisals of connectedness, facilitated by empathic engagement.
Jonna Vuoskoski is Associate Professor of Music Cognition at the University of Oslo, Norway, where she is a core member of the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion, and the leader of the Interaction and Pleasure -research cluster. Vuoskoski received her doctorate from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) in 2012, and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Oxford and the University of Jyväskylä. Her main areas of interest are music-induced emotion, empathy, and the social and embodied cognition of music. Currently she is working on a project investigating the role of entrainment and experiences of ‘being moved’ in the pro-social effects of music.
Free to attend, register here.
About the series:
The Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford is pleased to announce this term’s seminars in the Oxford Seminar in the Psychology of Music (OSPoM) series. The broad theme of this year’s seminars is ‘Entrainment’, complementing the focus on ‘Rhythm’ for the Oxford Seminar in Music Theory and Analysis (OSiMTA). Details of this term’s seminars are provided below. Enjoying a position at a neglected part of the clock, seminars will start at 4.56pm GMT, and will last for 90 minutes - 45 minutes presentation followed by 45 minutes of discussion. The seminars take place on Zoom and are open to all. Those interested in attending should register via the links above. For any enquiries about OSPoM, please email: events@music.ox.ac.uk
