Hooked on Music – Play and Help Science!

Today’s post is a bit different, as it’s all about “Hooked on Music” – a set of four online music-based games that have been launched by MOSI (The Museum of Science & Industry) in Manchester. They’re fun, addictive, none of them involve any music trivia (which is great for me as I have none) and they’re part of a scientific study which could potentially aid future research into Alzheimer’s disease.

The games are designed to explore the science behind what makes a musical hook, with gamers having to select the catchiest bits of famous songs, or trying to stay in time with songs as they get muted for 4 seconds. The hope is to use this data to help explore the science behind what makes certain parts of a song catchier than others, and to see whether this data could be used to devise ways to trigger memories and provide therapeutic benefits.

“Hooked on Music” has been created by computational musicologist Dr Ashley Burgoyne and his team at the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht, and he’ll be presenting the results of the experiment at the Manchester Science Festival towards the end of the year. This experiment is a great example of citizen science (scientific research that the public contribute to), and the more people that play these games the more data there will be to analyse as part of the research. Our gaming can help science, people! I even played on the go on my mobile which helped make my daily commute more interesting. Why not try it out at http://www.hookedonmusic.org.uk/?