Dr Jon Prince
BA (Brain and Cognitive Sciences), MA (Psychology), PhD (Psychology)

Topic: Cognitive psychology, music cognition

I am interested in the cognitive mechanisms that enable us to combine stimulus dimensions into a coherent mental representation. I investigate this phenomenon within the context of the perception and performance of music, which is one of the most psychologically complex and uniquely human behaviors.

When integrating pitch and time (the primary dimensions of this patterned auditory stimulus), I have found that differences in the salience of these two dimensions affects how they combine. My research suggests that there are three main mechanisms of influencing relative dimensional salience: stimulus structure, task variables, and processing strategy.

I am the Academic Chair for the Honours Program. I coordinate the following units:

PSY297 Sensation and Perception

PSY5078 BA Honours Thesis

PSY5099 BSc Honours thesis

Topic: Cognitive psychology, music cognition

I am interested in the cognitive mechanisms that enable us to combine stimulus dimensions into a coherent mental representation. I investigate this phenomenon within the context of the perception and performance of music, which is one of the most psychologically complex and uniquely human behaviors.

When integrating pitch and time (the primary dimensions of this patterned auditory stimulus), I have found that differences in the salience of these two dimensions affects how they combine. My research suggests that there are three main mechanisms of influencing relative dimensional salience: stimulus structure, task variables, and processing strategy.

Lindsay & Heather Payne Medical Research Charitable Foundation (2021-2022)
Improving quality of life in persons with dementia through personalised music listening
Project cost: $135,500 for research activities
Chief investigators: A/Prof Hamid Sohrabi, Dr Jon Prince

Distinguished Collaborator Award, Murdoch University (with Mark Schmuckler, University of Toronto), 2013-2015 ($30,000 total).

Recipient, Scace Graduate Fellowship, 2005.

Recipient, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, 2004 (declined).

Min Loo (PhD) - Exploring the Impact of Music Listening on Mindfulness Skills Acquisition: A Quantitative Study (co-supervised with Helen Correia, graduated 2018)

Paul Norman (PhD) – Cognitive, affective, and physiological effects of emotion regulation strategies (co-supervised with Helen Davis, graduated 2014)

Tom Scott-Clark (PhD) – Cross-modal perception and the temporal integration window (co-supervised with Urte Roeber)

Evie Glasshouse (MPhil) – Brain activity from predicted and unpredicted visual inputs (co-supervised with Urte Roeber and Robert O’Shea)

Refereed Publications:

Herff, S. A., McConnell, S., Ji, J., Prince, J. B. (2022). Eye closure interacts with music to influence vividness and content of directed imagery. Music & Science. doi: 10.1177/20592043221142711
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Herff, S. A., Dorsheimer, I., Dahmen, B., & Prince, J. B. (2022). Information Processing Biases: The effects of mood on sampling pleasant and unpleasant information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. doi: 10.1037/xap0000450
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Loo, L. M., Correia, H. M., & Prince, J. B. (2020). Exploring Mindfulness Attentional Skills Acquisition, Psychological and Physiological Functioning and Wellbeing: Using Mindful Breathing or Mindful Listening in a Non-Clinical Sample. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 30, 103-118. doi: 10.1037/pmu0000255
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Prince, J. B., Tan, S. E. J., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2020). Listeners perceive complex pitch-temporal structure in melodies. Memory & Cognition, 48, 526-540. doi: 10.3758/s13421-019-00987-5
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Prince, J. B., Sopp, M. (2019). Temporal expectancies affect accuracy in standard-comparison judgements of duration, but neither pitch height, nor timbre, nor loudness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 45, 585-600. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000629
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Prince, J. B., Rice, T. (2018). Regularity and dimensional salience in temporal grouping. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44, 1356-1367. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000542
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Prince, J. B., Jones, M. R., Stevens, C., & Tillmann, B. (2018). Learning of pitch and time structures in an artificial grammar setting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44, 1201-1214. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000502
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Herff, S. A., Olsen, K. N., Dean, R. T., & Prince, J. B. (2018). Memory for melodies in unfamiliar tuning systems: Investigating effects of recency and number of intervening items. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71, 1367-1381. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1333519
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Herff, S. A., Olsen, K. N., Prince, J. B., & Dean, R. T. (2018). Interference in memory for pitch-only and rhythm-only sequences. Musicae Scientiae, 22, 344-361. doi: 10.1177/1029864917695654
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Order, S., Murray, L., Prince, J. B., & de Freitas, S. (2017). Developing new methods for testing for creativity in learning activities: A case study of audio remix practice with undergraduate students. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 27, 298-310. doi: 10.1177/1326365X17728827
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Prince, J. B., & Loo, L. M. (2017). Surface and structural effects of pitch and time on melodic expectancies. Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung, 81, 255-270. doi: 10.1007/s00426-015-0737-y
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Prince, J. B., Vuvan, D. T., Schmuckler, M. A., & Scott-Clark, T. T. (2015). Tonal priming is resistant to changes in pitch height. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 77, 2011-2020. doi: 10.3758/s13414-015-0904-7
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Prince, J. B. (2014). Contributions of pitch contour, tonality, rhythm, and meter to melodic similarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40, 2319-2337. doi: 10.1037/a0038010
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Prince, J. B. (2014). Pitch structure, but not selective attention, affects accent weightings in metrical grouping. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40, 2073-2090. doi: 10.1037/a0037730
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Prince, J. B., & Schmuckler, M. A., (2014). The tonal-metric hierarchy: A corpus analysis. Music Perception, 31, 254-270. doi: 10.1525/MP.2014.31.3.254
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Pearl, J., & Prince, J. B. (2014). Auditory cheesecake. In W. F. Thompson & G. J. Golson (Eds.), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Prince, J. B. (2014). Behavioral methods. In W. F. Thompson & G. J. Golson (Eds.), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Prince, J. B. (2014). Circular tones. In W. F. Thompson & G. J. Golson (Eds.), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Prince, J. B. (2014). Independence and interaction of features. In W. F. Thompson & G. J. Golson (Eds.), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Prince, J. B. (2014). Tonality. In W. F. Thompson & G. J. Golson (Eds.), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Prince, J. B. (2012). Pitch and time salience in metrical grouping. In E. Cambouropoulos & M. Pastiadis (Eds.), 12th International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition (pp. 813-819). Thessaloniki, Greece.

Prince, J. B., & Pfordresher, P. Q. (2012). The role of pitch and temporal diversity in the perception and production of musical sequences. Acta Psychologica, 141, 184-198. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2012.07.013
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Prince, J. B. (2011). The integration of stimulus dimensions in the perception of music. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 2125-2152. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2011.573080
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Prince, J. B., & Sunderland, J. H. (2011). Pitch and temporal contributions to melodic expectancy. Power of Music – The 34^th National Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia and the 2nd International Conference on Music and Emotion, November 2011, Perth.

Vuvan, D., Prince, J. B., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2011). Probing the minor tonal hierarchy. Music Perception, 28, 461-472. doi: 10.1525/mp.2011.28.5.461
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Prince, J. B., Schmuckler, M. A., & Thompson, W. F. (2009a). The effect of task and pitch structure on pitch-time interactions in music. Memory & Cognition, 37, 368-381. doi: 10.3758/MC.37.3.368
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Prince, J. B., Schmuckler, M. A., & Thompson, W. F. (2009b). Cross-modal melodic contour similarity. Canadian Acoustics, 37, 35-49. Special issue: Multidimensional and multimodal integration in music.
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Prince, J. B., Thompson, W. F., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2009). Pitch and time, tonality and meter: How do musical dimensions combine? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 1598-1617. doi: 10.1037/a0016456
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Conference Presentations:

Herff, S. A. & Prince, J. B. (2020, May). Learning, Mood, and Music: Depression, anxiety, and stress reflect processing biases in positive and negative chord sequences. Poster presented at Brain, Cognition, Emotions, and Music, Canterbury, United Kingdom.

Prince, J. B., & Sopp, M. (2019, July). How general is Dynamic Attending Theory? Paper presented at the International Symposium on Performance Science, Melbourne, Australia.

Prince, J. B., Tan, S.-E., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2018, July). Misaligning the tonal and metric hierarchies in normal melodies decreases goodness and beat clarity. Paper presented at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Sydney, Australia.

Loo, L. M., Correia, H., & Prince, J. B. (2017, December). Exploring the Impact of Using Instrumental Music or Nature Sounds in a Structured Mindfulness Programme on Psychological Wellbeing in Healthy Adults. Paper presented at 3rd Conference of the Australian Music & Psychology Society (AMPS) incorporating the 5th International Conference on Music and Emotion (ICME), Brisbane, Australia.

Teow, T., Gouldthorp, B., Prince, J., Roeber, U. (2017, November). Brain processing of syntax violations in language and music. Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society (ACNS) Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

Prince, J. B. (2017, June). How not to observe a temporal expectancy profile. Neuromusic VI – Music, Sound, and Health, Boston, USA.

Pfordresher, P. Q., Kovacs, P. S., & Prince, J. B. (2016, November). Effects of Pitch and Rhythmic Prototypicality in Music Perception and Performance. 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, USA.

Prince, J. B., Rice, T. (2016, July). Metricality modifies the salience of duration accents but not pitch accents. International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, San Francisco, USA.

Prince, J. B., Jones, M. R., Stevens, C., & Tillmann, B. (2015). Implicit learning of an artificial grammar structure in pitch and/or time. AMPS 2015: The Art and Science of Music, December 2015, Sydney.

Prince, J. B., Vuvan, D., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2014). Does pitch height affect tonal priming? Neuromusic V – Cognitive Stimulation and Rehabilitation, May 2014, Dijon.

Prince, J. B., & Loo, L. M. (2013). Surface and structural effects of pitch and time on melodic expectancy. Music, Mind, and Health, November 2013, Melbourne.

Prince, J. B. & Pfordresher, P. Q. (2010). Pitch/time diversity effects on perception and production. LOAN 2010, June 2010, Buffalo.

Prince, J. B. (2009). The integration of pitch and time in ratings of melodic goodness. APCAM, November 2009, Boston.

Prince, J. B., Thompson, W. F., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2009). The effect of task and pitch structure on pitch-time interactions in music. Society for Music Perception and Cognition, August 2009, Indianapolis.

Vuvan, D., Prince, J. B., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2009). Probing the minor tonal hierarchy. Society for Music Perception and Cognition, August 2009, Indianapolis.

Prince, J. B., Thompson, W. F., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2007). Interaction or independence of musical dimensions: Pitch and rhythm, tonality and meter. Society for Music Perception and Cognition, August 2007, Montreal.

Prince, J. B., & Schmuckler, M. A. (2005). Cross-modal perception of contour: The role of surface correlation and Fourier analysis similarity. 46^th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, November 10-13, Toronto.