View source for Samuel Mehr

{{Short description|American cognitive scientist}}
{{use mdy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Samuel Mehr
| image             = Samuel_Mehr.jpg
| occupation        = Senior Lecturer in Psychology
| field             = Cognitive Psychology <br> Developmental Psychology <br> Data Science
| workplaces        = University Auckland <br> Yale University
| alma_mater        = Harvard University
}}
'''Samuel Mehr''' is a New Zealand cognitive scientist specialising in [[auditory perception]], [[developmental psychology]], cross-cultural research, and [[data science]]. He is based at the [[University of Auckland]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=2023 Winner of Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Maea the MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize |url=https://pmscienceprizes.org.nz/2023-winner-of-te-puiaki-kaiputaiao-maea-the-macdiarmid-emerging-scientist-prize/ |website=}}</ref> and the [[Yale Child Study Center]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yale Child Study Center welcomes former Haskins Laboratories faculty and trainees  |url=https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/yale-child-study-center-welcomes-former-haskins-laboratories-faculty-and-trainees/ |access-date=2024-05-21 |website=medicine.yale.edu |language=en}}</ref>
Mehr was the recipient of the New Zealand [[Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize|Prime Minister's MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize]] in 2023,<ref>{{cite web |title=Samuel Mehr: Unravelling music's mysteries |url=https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2024/05/02/samuel-mehr-unravelling-musics-mysteries.html |website=University of Auckland |date=May 2, 2024 |access-date=September 14, 2024}}</ref> and the US [[National Institutes of Health]] Director's Early Independence Award in 2017,<ref>{{Cite web |title=2017 Awardees {{!}} NIH Common Fund |url=https://commonfund.nih.gov/earlyindependence/AwardRecipients17 |access-date=2024-05-21 |website=commonfund.nih.gov}}</ref> both for his work on the [[Music psychology|psychology of music]].
==Academic career==
Mehr attended the [[Eastman School of Music]] at the University of Rochester, where he received a Bachelor of Music in Music Education in 2010. Mehr completed his [[Ed.D.]] in Human Development and Education from [[Harvard University]] in 2017 under the mentorship of [[Howard Gardner]], [[Steven Pinker]], and [[Elizabeth Spelke]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Williams |first=Maxwell |title=30 Top Thinkers Under 30: The Multi-Instrumentalist Who Wants to Understand Why People Make Music |url=https://psmag.com/social-justice/30-top-thinkers-30-multi-instrumentalist-wants-understand-people-make-music-77299/ |website=Pacific Standard |date=April 14, 2014 |access-date=September 14, 2024}}</ref> After completing his doctorate, he continued as a Faculty Research Associate at Harvard, where he continued his research into music cognition and developmental psychology.
Mehr has served as a Lecturer at [[Victoria University of Wellington]] and is currently an Associate Professor Adjunct at Yale University Child Study Center and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland where he leads a lab focused on exploring the intersections of music, culture, and cognitive development.
===Research areas===
Mehr's research is primarily focused on the psychological and evolutionary underpinnings of music. He has conducted extensive studies on how and why music is a universal phenomenon across cultures. One area of his research involved assembling archival recordings from 319 societies from around the world to create a database titled The Natural History of Song.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Exploring the Universality of Human Song|url=https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/12/03/exploring-the-universality-of-human-song/ |access-date=2024-08-20 |website=|date=December 3, 2019 }}</ref> Examining 5,000 songs, Mehr and colleagues examined that several forms of song, namely love songs, dance songs, lullabies, and songs of healing [[Principal Component Analysis|clustered together]] along three primary dimensions related to each song's respective formality, arousal, and religiosity. Mehr and colleagues also experimentally showed that individual listeners carry assess these songs along similar dimensions in both [[WEIRD]] and non-WEIRD societies.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Study Suggests That People Can Hear Universal Traits in Music|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/the-search-for-universal-qualities-in-music-heats-up/551447/ |access-date=2024-08-20 |website=[[The Atlantic]]|date=January 25, 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Where is the love? Musical recognition crosses cultures — with an exception|url=https://news.yale.edu/2023/09/07/where-love-musical-recognition-crosses-cultures-exception |access-date=2024-08-20 |website=|date=September 7, 2023 }}</ref>
Mehr also showed that vocal signatures of infant-directed care, such as [[lullabies]] and [[baby talk]] are expressed cross-culturally across the globe in both industrialized and non-industrialized societies and carry similar properties regardless of location.<ref>{{Cite news |title='Parentese' Is Truly a Lingua Franca, Global Study Finds|work=The New York Times |date=July 24, 2022 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/science/parentese-babies-global-language.html |access-date=2024-08-20 |last1=Whang |first1=Oliver }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Garcia-Navarro |first=Lulu |title=Baby Talk: Parenting Language Research |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113206642/baby-talk-parenting-language-research |website=NPR |date=July 23, 2022 |access-date=September 14, 2024}}</ref> He argues that the evolution of such signals may have been reflected in the context of an [[evolutionary arms race]] resulting from [[parent-offspring conflict]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The making of music |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170224160626.htm |website=ScienceDaily |publisher=University of Washington |date=February 24, 2017 |access-date=September 14, 2024}}</ref>
Another key area of Mehr's research is the impact of music on child development. His work in this domain examined the role that [[Mozart effect|playing music]] may have on infant development, finding no spillover effects of a musical education on non-musical cognitive development.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Singing With My Grandbaby|work=The New York Times |date=August 15, 2018 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/well/family/singing-with-my-grandbaby.html |access-date=2024-08-20 |last1=Span |first1=Paula }}</ref>
== References ==
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[[Category:American expatriates in New Zealand |American expatriates in New Zealand]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Psychology educators]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehr, Samuel}}
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:Eastman School of Music alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Auckland]]
[[Category:21st-century New Zealand psychologists]]
[[Category:21st-century American psychologists]]
[[Category:American cognitive scientists]]