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Open research questions in Neuroscience and Music Perception

519 gap statements mined from Neuroscience and Music Perception papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,367 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Although the effects are likely D1R-mediated, a contribution of the serotonin system cannot be entirely ruled out due to tracer properties, even though it is less sensitive to serotonin at the doses used representing a methodological limitation of the present study. A further limitation of the present study is the absence of a temporally structured non-musical control condition, such as phasic noise.

    Music engages the phasic dopaminergic D1-receptor system in humans: a PET-fMRI study using [11C]SCH23390 · 2026 · DOI

  • The absence of significant associations with tapping performance may point to dissociations between speech and music sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), warranting further study.

    Linking spontaneous speech synchronization and cognitive abilities: evidence from a syllable-timed language · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could address several further questions. First, direct comparison with speakers of other pitch-accent languages would help clarify whether the observed effects are specific to Japanese or reflect broader properties of pitch-accent systems.

    Pitch accent speakers exhibit speech-to-song transformation accompanied by reduced musicality ratings: a cross-linguistic study · 2026 · DOI

  • However, it remains unknown how phase- and frequency-synchronized mechanisms, such as ITPC, function in speakers of tonal languages, as this phenomenon has not yet been systematically investigated in this population. However, these auditory responses have not yet been examined in individuals with ASD who speak tonal languages.

    Brain mechanisms of auditory perception in autism spectrum disorder: a comparative perspective on tonal and non-tonal languages · 2026 · DOI

  • Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with impaired temporal processing, but it remains unclear which cognitive-computational mechanisms underlie rhythmic timing deficits.

    Computational markers of rhythmic timing in Parkinson's disease · 2026 · DOI

  • Therefore, it remains to be determined whether the upregulation of functional connectivity within auditory dorsal streams in ONMs indicates a compensatory strategy. However, other studies have reported conflicting findings.

    Long-term musical training can protect against age-related upregulation of neural activity in speech-in-noise perception · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research could consider discussing the effects of long-term LKM interventions with music on practitioners. Given the practice effect mentioned above, future research could consider providing background music to experienced LKM practitioners, which may allow the role of music to be highlighted.

    The Impacts of Background Music on the Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Positive Emotions · 2024 · DOI

  • RSA of the EEG data for both the dialogue stream and the background stream revealed that selective attention strongly modulated TRFs at several latencies that have not been reported in previous studies.

    Attention to audiovisual speech shapes neural processing through feedback-feedforward loops between different nodes of the speech network · 2024 · DOI

  • Finally, future research should consider individual differences by examining how readers with varying levels of impairment severity perform in automatic orthographic-phonological integration. Second, this study is limited by the adult-only sample.

    Deficits in orthographic-phonological automatic integration for chinese adults with reading fluency difficulty: Evidence from ERP · 2026 · DOI

  • Taken together, the available evidence provides an empirical basis for treating vocal identity and occupational confidence as plausible concerns for future singer-specific research, although direct empirical evidence from singers is currently lacking.

    When voices can be cloned: vocal identity threat and occupational self-efficacy among singers in the era of generative AI audio · 2026 · DOI

  • It is an open question whether the brain processes a sequence's timing and predictable content structure independently, or integrates these two sources of information to guide prediction.

    Predictable Timing Enhances the Use of Predictable Content · 2026 · DOI

  • Understanding how musical structure shapes emotion perception remains a central question in music psychology, yet the role of mid-level structural features in Chinese traditional music is underexplored.

    How balance, contour, symmetry, and complexity predict the perceived emotions in Chinese traditional music · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should focus on global college student samples from different countries and use longitudinal research methods to better understand the psychological development of college students. Therefore, other factors influencing college students’ pro-social behavior have not been explored.

    Does Participation in Group Music Activities and Pro-Social Behavior Among College Students Have an Association? A Study of the Interlocking Mediating Effects of Positive Social Connections and Peer Support · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research should explore these interactions to advance VR-based interventions, interactive media, and digital based solutions for wellbeing.

    Feeling the music: exploring emotional effects of auditory-tactile musical experiences · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research could explore the sociocultural factors influencing musical preferences, considering regional and cultural variations. One limitation is that we exclusively employed four pre-selected music videos, each representing distinct music styles.

    Musical Preferences among Students Aged 9–19: A Study on Musical Genres and Styles · 2024 · DOI

  • The potential effect of speech expertise would need to be examined, for example, in future developmental studies in which expertise can be more carefully controlled.

    The human auditory system uses amplitude modulation to distinguish music from speech · 2024 · DOI

  • While normative patterns of chord pleasantness judgments are well studied, relatively little is known about how listeners vary in these judgments.

    Modeling individual differences in chord pleasantness judgments. · 2026 · DOI

  • Familiar songs are often more effective than unfamiliar songs at capturing infant attention, regulating emotion, and eliciting rhythmic movements, but how infants rely on lyrics and melody to recognize well-known music from their regular repertoire is not well understood.

    Melody and Lyrics Are Integrated by Late Infancy During Recognition of Music Learned at Home · 2026 · DOI

  • Although newborns are believed to preferentially attend to positive prosody, the perceptual mechanisms underlying this response-as well as the degree to which these responses are language-specific-remain poorly understood.

    First Sounds of Emotion: Newborns' Sensitivity to Emotional Prosody and Its Relation With Maternal Depressive Traits · 2026 · DOI

  • However, the neural responses related to inter-individual differences in these biases remain poorly understood.

    Neural correlates of perceptual biases in duration perception · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite the growing body of research on instrumental timbre semantics, the semantics of the singing voice remains notably underexplored—a striking omission, given its fundamental role in human communication and musical expression.

    Timbre Semantics of the Singing Voice · 2026 · DOI

  • While the BMRQ has been translated into seven languages to date, its five-factor structure has not yet been compared across cultures.

    A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Individual Differences in Musical Reward · 2026 · DOI

  • Although this exploratory study did not control for social determinants of mental health, the findings suggest that personality traits play a meaningful role in how individuals experience the benefits of choral singing.

    Personality Traits of Choral Singers and Their Association with Perceived Mental Well-Being · 2025 · DOI

  • Only a few studies have explored the association between such aesthetic processes with brain activity and the related patterns of brain connectivity states.

    Beauty is in the brain networks of the beholder: An exploratory functional magnetic resonance imaging study. · 2024 · DOI

  • Mauchly’s test of sphericity could not be evaluated due to the large number of within-subject levels.

    Neuronal populations across the cortex underlie discrete, categorical, and subjective representations of visual durations · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Neuroscience and Music Perception

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) It remains unknown how phase- and frequency-synchronized mechanisms, such as ITPC, function in speakers of tonal languages, as this phenomenon has not yet been systematically investigated in this population (“Brain mechanisms of auditory perception in autism spectrum disorder: a…”, 2026); (2) Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with impaired temporal processing, but it remains unclear which cognitive-computational mechanisms underlie rhythmic timing deficits (“Computational markers of rhythmic timing in Parkinson's disease”, 2026); (3) Future research should consider individual differences by examining how readers with varying levels of impairment severity perform in automatic orthographic-phonological integration (“Deficits in orthographic-phonological automatic integration for chinese adults…”, 2026); (4) It is an open question whether the brain processes a sequence's timing and predictable content structure independently, or integrates these two sources of information to guide prediction (“Predictable Timing Enhances the Use of Predictable Content”, 2026); (5) While normative patterns of chord pleasantness judgments are well studied, relatively little is known about how listeners vary in these judgments (“Modeling individual differences in chord pleasantness judgments”, 2026). 519 gap statements have been mined from Neuroscience and Music Perception papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 2,367 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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