Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Music, the cortisone balm?

Posted 17 Aug 2015 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Can Music Save Your Life?” This article is kind of all over the place, but at its heart I think that it poses an interesting question: what role does music play for us in today’s world? The idea that we use music as a kind of escape from the banality Read More

A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Emotion, Music

Seth Horowitz on our perception of sound

Posted 10 Feb 2013 / 0

WNYC The Leonard Lopate Show “ Please Explain: Hearing and Sound” Interesting that Horowitz discusses the same rationale for why the cell phone conversations of others are so much more annoying than other conversations, a topic I have discussed here.

A Minor Post, Music, Radio & Podcasts, Sound Perception

Music evolves (culturally!) from noise to song under the influence of human selection

Posted 24 Jun 2012 / 0

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Evolution of music by public choice” Science Now “Computer Program ‘Evolves’ Music From Noise” DarwinTunes site I am excited to read this article in full. What’s clear is that this is a pretty “canned” version of cultural evolution, but it is exciting to see this cultural evolution being Read More

A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Music

Greg Graffin on The Takeaway

Posted 15 Nov 2010 / 0

Back in the early 1990’s, I could be found skateboarding around the campus of Pomona College. As I rolled my way from the dining hall to those eight o’clock classes in Chemistry that served to weed out potential Biology majors who were not inclined to early rising or algebra, chances are that there was a Read More

Evolution, Music, Radio & Podcasts, Religion, Reviews