Music and the Mind Part 2: Music and Emotion

David Smith, Ph.D. and Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Northwestern University, will speak on the topic, Music and the Mind Part 2: Music and Emotion.  Music can evoke powerful emotional responses such as chills and goosebumps in listeners.  In fact, positive emotions are more frequently associated with musical experiences for listeners, even when they are exposed to powerfully sad music.  How does music listening produce emotions and pleasure in listeners, and what might that tell us about music’s potential as a mechanism of healing?  This discussion will focus on current understanding of the psychology of emotion, music and their interplay.

David Smith teaches courses in the psychology of music, decision making, sport psychology, research design and statistics.  He earned a B.A. from Denison University and a Ph. D. from Virginia Commonwealth University, and has held faculty appointments at Middlebury College and the University of Michigan.  He is an amateur musician and music enthusiast who never tires of listening to great music.  He is married with two teen-aged children and lives in Glenview.