People

Professor Tuomas Eerola, PhD

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Contact Professor Tuomas Eerola (email at tuomas.eerola@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Tuomas Eerola is Professor in Music Cognition in Durham University. He obtained his MA degree in musicology at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) in 1997. His pre-doctoral work involved periods of study at Leicester University (UK) and Cornell University (USA). In 2003, he finished his PhD at University of Jyväskylä in musicology (music cognition). In 2003-2006, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at the same institution, followed by a postdoctoral position at an EU Project (Tuning the Brain for Music). Between 2007 and 2013, he held a professorship at the the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), first associated with Music, Mind & Technology MA programme and later as a Chair of Musicology. Eerola was affiliated with the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research. He is currently the Head of Deparment of the Music Department in Durham University.

Professor Eerola has lead several major research projects, "Sweet Sorrow" funded by the Academy of Finland (2013-2017). He is currently co-investigator in 'Interpersonal Entrainment in Music Performance', funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, 2016-18), led by Martin Clayton and co-investigators Antonio Camurri (Genoa) and Peter Keller (Sydney).

He has published more than 50 journal articles in the past 10 years (see Google Scholar or ResearchGate). Eerola has been the President of Finnish Musicological Society and serves on several editorial boards including the journals Psychology of Music, and Psychomusicology.

To read more about music psychology at Durham, see Music & Science Lab and Music Psychology at Durham.

Consultation hour

Thursday 2-3 pm (Room 102, Divinity House)

Office address

Room 102, Divinity House

Research Interests

• Music and emotions
• Music and movement
• Music perception, particularly melody, rhythm and timbre

Selected Publications

Chapter in book

• Eerola, T. & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2019). Personality and Listeners. In The Science and Psychology of Music: From Mozart at the Office to Metallica at the Gym. Thompson, W. F. & Olsen, K. ABC-CLIO.
• Eerola, T. (2018). Music and Emotion. In Music psychology. Springer handbook of systematic musicology. Bader, Rolf Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. 539-554.
• Eerola, T. (2014). Complexity. In Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia. Thompson, William Forde Sage. 227-229.
• Eerola, T. (2014). Database studies. In Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia. Thompson, William Forde Sage. 316-319.
• Eerola, T. (2014). Melody processing. In Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia. Thompson, William Forde Sage. 684-687.
• Eerola, T. (2014). Similarity, Melodic. In Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia. Thompson, William Forde Sage. 1003-1006.
• Eerola, T. & Punkanen, M. (2012). King of Sorrow - Perception and experience of sadness in music. In New York, US: Nova. Psychology of Sadness: 31-52.
• Erkkilä, J. & Eerola, T. (2010). Gambling Addiction: Evaluation of a Multimethod Treatment Programme Including Music Therapy. In Music Therapy and Addictions. Aldridge, D. & Fachner, J. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley. 132-151.
• Zentner, Marcel R. & Eerola, T. (2010). Handbook of Music and Emotion. In Juslin, P. N. & Sloboda, J. A. Boston, MA: Oxford University Press. 187-221.
• Eerola, T. (2010). Musical listening habits of College students in Finland, Slovenia, South Africa, and Texas: Similarities and Differences. In Schuler, N. & others Hamburg, Germany: Peter Lang. 59-70.

Edited Sources, Research Data Sets, and Databases

• Maksimainen, Johanna, Wikgren, Jan, Eerola, Tuomas & Saarikallio, Suvi (2017). The effect of memory in inducing pleasant emotions of musical and pictorial stimuli. Harvard Dataverse.

Journal Article

• Bonneville-Roussy, A. & Eerola, T. (2018). Age trends in musical preferences in adulthood: 3. Perceived musical attributes as intrinsic determinants of preferences. Musicae Scientiae 22(3): 394-414.
• Eerola, T., Vuoskoski, J. K., Peltola, H.-R., Putkinen, V. & Schäfer, K. (2018). An Integrative Review of the Enjoyment of Sadness Associated with Music. Physics of Life Reviews 25: 100-121.
• Reybrouck, M., Eerola, T. & Podlipniak, P. (2018). Editorial: Music and the Functions of the Brain: Arousal, Emotions, and Pleasure. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 113.
• Schäfer, K. & Eerola, T. (2018). How listening to music and engagement with other media provide a sense of belonging: an exploratory study of social surrogacy. Psychology of Music
• Hadley, L.V., Sturt, P., Eerola, T. & Pickering, M.J. (2018). Incremental comprehension of pitch relationships in written music: Evidence from eye movements. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 71(1): 211-219.
• Cespedes-Guevara, J. & Eerola, T. (2018). Music communicates affects, not basic emotions – A constructionist account of attribution of emotional meanings to music. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 215.
• Eerola, T., Jakubowski, K., Moran, N., Keller, P. & Clayton, M. (2018). Shared Periodic Performer Movements Coordinate Interactions in Duo Improvisations. Royal Society Open Science 5(2): 171520.
• Bannister, S. C. & Eerola, T. (2018). Suppressing the Chills: Effects of Musical Manipulation on the Chills Response. Frontiers in Psychology - Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience 9: 2046.
• Maksimainen, J, Wikgren, J, Eerola, T & Saarikallio, S (2018). The effect of memory in inducing pleasant emotions with musical and pictorial stimuli. Scientific Reports 8(1): 17638.
• Eerola, T., Vuoskoski, J. K., Peltola, H.-R., Putkinen, V. & Schäfer, K. (2018). Towards a more explicit account of the transformation: Reply to comments on “An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music”. Physics of Life Reviews 25: 156-166.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2017). Explaining the enjoyment of negative emotions evoked by the arts: The need to consider empathy and other underlying mechanisms of emotion induction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40: 42-43.
• Jakubowski, Kelly, Eerola, Tuomas, Alborno, Paolo, Volpe, Gualtiero, Camurri, Antonio & Clayton, Martin (2017). Extracting Coarse Body Movements from Video in Music Performance: A Comparison of Automated Computer Vision Techniques with Motion Capture Data. Frontiers in Digital Humanities, section Digital Musicology 4: 9.
• Garrido, S., Eerola, T. & McFerran, K. (2017). Group Rumination: Social Interactions Around Music in People with Depression. Frontiers in Psychology 8: 490.
• Eerola, T. & Pearce, M. T. (2017). Modelling historical audiences: What can be inferred?. Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies 8(1-2): 132-140.
• Reybrouck, M. & Eerola, T. (2017). Music and Its Inductive Power: A Psychobiological and Evolutionary Approach to Musical Emotions. Frontiers in Psychology 8: 494.
• Pearce, M. T. & Eerola, T. (2017). Music perception in historical audiences: Towards predictive models of music perception in historical audiences. Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies 8(1-2): 91-120.
• Putkinen, V., Makkonen, T. & Eerola, T. (2017). Music-induced positive mood broadens the scope of auditory attention. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 12(7): 1159-1168.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2017). The Pleasure Evoked by Sad Music Is Mediated by Feelings of Being Moved. Frontiers in Psychology 8: 439.
• Eerola, T., Vuoskoski, J. K. & Kautiainen, H. (2016). Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy. Frontiers in Psychology 7: 1176.
• Eerola, T. (2016). Expectancy-Violation and Information-Theoretic Models of Melodic Complexity. Empirical Musicology Review 11(1): 2-17.
• Brattico, E., Bogert, B., Alluri, V., Tervaniemi, M., Eerola, T. & Jacobsen, T. (2016). It’s sad but I like it: The neural dissociation between musical emotions and liking in experts and laypersons. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9: 676.
• Eerola, T. & Peltola, H.-R. (2016). Memorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences. PLoS One 11(6): e0157444.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2016). Mild dissonance preferred over consonance in single chord perception. i-Perception 7(3): 2041669516655812
• Hausmann, M., Hodgetts, S. & Eerola, T. (2016). Music-induced changes in functional cerebral asymmetries. Brain and Cognition 104: 58-71.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2016). Single chords convey distinct emotional qualities to both naïve and expert listeners. Psychology of Music 44(1): 37-54.
• Eerola, T., Peltola, H.-R. & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2015). Attitudes towards sad music are related to both preferential and contextual strategies. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 25(2): 116-123.
• Peltola, H. & Eerola, T. (2015). Fifty Shades of Blue: Classification of music-evoked sadness. Musicae Scientiae 20(1): 84-102.
• Juslin, P. N. Barradas, G. & Eerola, T. (2015). From Sound to Significance: Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Reactions to Music. The American Journal of Psychology 128(3): 281-304.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2015). Theoretical proposals how vertical harmony may convey nostalgia and longing in music. Empirical Musicology Review 10(3): 245-263.
• Saari, P. & Eerola, T. (2014). Semantic Computing of Moods Based on Tags in Social Media of Music. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 26(10): 2548-2560.
• Eerola, T., Friberg, A. & Bresin, R. (2013). Emotional Expression in Music: Contribution, Linearity, and Additivity of Primary Musical Cues. Frontiers in Psychology 4: 487.
• Ferrer, R., Eerola, T. & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2013). Enhancing genre-based measures of music preference by user-defined liking and social tags. Psychology of Music 41(4): 499-518.
• Eerola, P.-S. & Eerola, T. (2013). Extended Music Education Enhances the Quality of School Life. Music Education Research 16(1): 88-104.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2013). Extra-musical information contributes to emotions induced by music. Psychology of Music September.
• Laukka, P., Eerola, T., Thingujam, N. S., Yamasaki, T. & Beller, G. (2013). Universal and Culture-Specific Factors in the Recognition and Performance of Musical Emotions. Emotion 13(3): 434-449.
• Juslin, P. N., Harmat, L. & Eerola, T. (2013). What Makes Music Emotionally Significant? Exploring the Underlying Mechanisms. Psychology of Music 42(4): 599-623.
• Eerola, T. & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2012). A review of music and emotion studies: Approaches, emotion models and stimuli. Music Perception 30(3): 307-340.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2012). Can sad music really make you sad? Indirect measures of affective states induced by music and autobiographical memories. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 6(3): 204-213.
• Aho, M. & Eerola, T. (2012). Expressive Performance cues in Gypsy Swing Guitar Style. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies of Music 6(1): 1-21.
• Eerola, T. (2012). Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain 22(2): 180-182.
• Tuuri, K. & Eerola, T. (2012). Formulating a Revised Taxonomy for Modes of Listening. Journal of New Music Research 41(2): 137-152.
• Eerola, T. (2012). Modeling Listeners' Emotional Response to Music. Topics in Cognitive Science 4(4): 607-624.
• Eerola, T., Ferrer, R. & Alluri, V. (2012). Timbre and affect dimensions: Evidence from affect and similarity ratings and acoustic correlates of isolated instrument sounds. Music Perception 30(1): 49-70.
• Vuoskoski, J. K., Thompson, B., McIlwain, D. & Eerola, T. (2012). Who enjoys listening to sad music and why?. Music Perception 29(3): 311-317.
• Eerola, Tuomas & Vuoskoski, Jonna K. (2011). A Comparison of the Discrete and Dimensional Models of Emotion in Music. Psychology of Music 39(1): 18-49.
• Eerola, Tuomas (2011). Are the Emotions Expressed in Music Genre-specific? An Audio-based Evaluation of Datasets Spanning Classical, Film, Pop and Mixed Genres. Journal of New Music Research 40(4): 349-366.
• Punkanen, M., Eerola, T. & Erkkilä, J. (2011). Biased emotional preferences in depression: Decreased liking of angry and energetic music by depressed patients. Music and Medicine 3(2): 114-120.
• Punkanen, M., Eerola, T. & Erkkilä, J. (2011). Biased emotional recognition in depression: Perception of emotions in music by depressed patients. Journal of Affective Disorders 130: 118-126.
• Kai Tuuri, Tuomas Eerola & Antti Pirhonen (2011). Design and evaluation of prosody-based non-speech audio feedback for physical training application. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69: 741-757.
• Saari, P., Eerola, T. & Lartillot, O. (2011). Generalizability and Simplicity as Criteria in Feature Selection: Application to Mood Classification in Music. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing 19(6): 1802-1812.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2011). Measuring music-induced emotion: A comparison of emotion models, personality biases, and intensity of experiences. Musicae Scientiae 15(2): 159-173.
• Lamont, A. & Eerola, T. (2011). Music and emotion: Themes and development. Musicae Scientiae 15(2): 1-7.
• Ferrer, R. & Eerola, T. (2011). Semantic Structures of Timbre Emerging From Social and Acoustic Descriptions of Music. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing 2011: 11.
• Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2011). The role of mood and personality in the perception of emotions represented by music. Cortex 47(9): 1099-1106.
• Eerola, Tuomas (2010). Analysing Emotions in Schubert’s Erlkönig: A Computational Approach. Music Analysis 29(1-3): 214-233.
• Zentner, Marcel & Eerola, Tuomas (2010). Rhythmic Engagement with Music in Infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107(13): 5768–5773.

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