EJN: How did you decide to become a neuroscientist? I’m
particularly interested in your response to this because I know your
education started with a bachelor’s in music performance, and then you
shifted to experimental psych. I’d love to learn what sparked that shift
for you.
TRAINOR: I had a bit of a convoluted route to becoming a neuroscientist.
In high school, I was very much into music. And I was also into math and
science. I was having some trouble deciding between those subjects, but
I actually initially went to university in math and physics. I completed
two years of that, and then I decided I really wanted to be a musician.
So, I switched, and I did my degree in music, but with a minor in math.
I then worked for a few years as a musician. This was the late 70s and
at that time, computers were really evolving and there was a lot of
interest in human-computer interfaces. I got interested in that and was
taking some computer science courses on the side. My interests were
philosophical in a way because I became interested in the difference
between a computer and a human brain. I had never taken any psychology
or neuroscience, but I decided I really wanted to explore these
questions. And so I ended up doing a PhD in psychology. It was wonderful
because I was able to combine my interest in music - I studied auditory
perception and musical development - and my interest in the brain, and
also my interest in the physics of sound and neural signal processing. I
was very lucky because at that time, the neuroscience of music was
hardly even a field. At the time, I would always preface any talk I gave
with why I thought we should be studying music. Everyone knew that
language is important for many aspects of behavior and memory and
attention. Whereas music was generally considered just a frill, of no
real importance. But that view has really changed over the last decades
as we’ve come to understand the fundamental role of music and rhythmic
behaviour in development, perception, and social interaction!