Staff profile

Imre Lahdelma is a post-doctoral researcher. He obtained his PhD degree in musicology from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2017. Imre’s doctoral work examined the perception of single chords (i.e., chords without a musical or tonal context) in terms of conveyed emotions and their psychoacoustic qualities. During his doctoral work he did research visits to the UK (Durham University) and the US where he held a Fulbright pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, collaborating with the UW Laboratory for Music Cognition, Culture & Learning. 

Imre’s current research focuses on the perception of consonance and dissonance from a cross-cultural perspective. His research is situated in the multidisciplinary field of music psychology and draws from methods of experimental psychology, psychoacoustics, and ethnomusicology. Imre’s current research aims to cast light on the questions of how and to what extent culture affects the way we perceive consonance and dissonance. 

For further information on Imre’s research publications, go to ResearchGate.

Doctoral Thesis

• Lahdelma, I. (2017). At the interface between sensation and emotion: Perceived qualities of single chords. Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities (313). University of Jyväskylä. PhD.

Journal Article

• Lahdelma, I., Eerola, T. & Armitage, J. (2022). Is Harmonicity a Misnomer for Cultural Familiarity in Consonance Preferences? Frontiers in Psychology 13: 802385.
• Eerola, T. & Lahdelma, I. (2022). Register Impacts Perceptual Consonance through Roughness and Sharpness. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 29(3): 800-808.
• Lahdelma, I., Armitage, J. & Eerola, T. (2022). Affective priming with musical chords is influenced by pitch numerosity. Musicae Scientiae 26(1): 208-217.
• Armitage, J., Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2021). Automatic responses to musical intervals: Contrasts in acoustic roughness predict affective priming in Western listeners. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 150(1): 551.
• Eerola, T. & Lahdelma, I. (2021). The Anatomy of Consonance/Dissonance: Evaluating Acoustic and Cultural Predictors Across Multiple Datasets with Chords. Music & Science 4.
• Lahdelma, I., Athanasopoulos, G. & Eerola, T. (2021). Sweetness is in the ear of the beholder: chord preference across United Kingdom and Pakistani listeners. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1502(1): 72-84.
• Athanasopoulos, G., Eerola, T., Lahdelma, I. & Kaliakatsos-Papakostas, M. (2021). Harmonic organisation conveys both universal and culture-specific cues for emotional expression in music. PLOS ONE 16(1): e0244964.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2020). Cultural familiarity and musical expertise impact the pleasantness of consonance/dissonance but not its perceived tension. Scientific Reports 10: 8693.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2016). Mild dissonance preferred over consonance in single chord perception. i-Perception 7(3): 2041669516655812
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2016). Single chords convey distinct emotional qualities to both naïve and expert listeners. Psychology of Music 44(1): 37-54.
• Lahdelma, I. & Eerola, T. (2015). Theoretical proposals on how vertical harmony may convey nostalgia and longing in music. Empirical Musicology Review 10(3): 245-263.