Project Grant 2242084

This $598,703 Project Grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences under the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program. The grant aims to elucidate the computational and neural mechanisms underlying musical enculturation - how people spontaneously engage with and learn the musical structures of unfamiliar cultures. The research involves implementing a series of behavioral, neuroimaging, and neurophysiology experiments to examine the neural underpinnings of long-term exposure to a familiar musical culture versus short-term exposure to an unfamiliar one. The study will leverage a computational model to quantify the statistical properties of musical sequences from different cultures. This work is expected to provide insights into how people acquire the rules and norms of cultural domains more broadly. The grant recipient is New York University, and no sub-awards are planned. The project period runs from September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026.