Education

• Ph.D., Biology (Neuroscience), University of Oregon, 1996
• B.A., Interdisciplinary (Biology/Psychology), Reed College, 1990

About

Petr Janata holds an academic appointment in the Department of Psychology and is a faculty member in the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. He is a cognitive neuroscientist studying the psychology and neuroscience of music, and is especially interested in the basic psychological and neural mechanisms that underlie strong experiences that people have with music, such as music-evoked remembering or feeling "in the groove." 

Research Focus

Professor Janata’s research interests are in the field of cognitive neuroscience, with a focus on music and auditory perception. His lab uses behavioral, functional neuroimaging (EEG/ERP, fMRI) and computational modeling techniques as needed to examine the bases for strong experiences with music, as well as more fundamental mechanisms of music perception in the context of domain-general brain functions. Diverse projects include investigations of (1) music-evoked autobiographical remembering and emotions; (2) psychological and neural mechanisms of being “in the groove”; (3) mechanisms of auditory attention, imagery and memory; and (4) links between timbre and emotion.

Recent projects have examined (1) how involuntary musical imagery, a.k.a. "earworms" or "songs that get stuck in your head" helps to strengthen memory for both the music and information that has been associated with the music, and (2) how tapping along with an adaptive metronome in small groups shapes socioemotional processes.

Lab

Janata Lab

Publications

• Kubit, B. M., & Janata, P. (2022). Spontaneous mental replay of music improves memory for incidentally associated event knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(1), 1–24. 
• Lauren K. Fink, Alexander, P. C., & Janata, P. (2022). The Groove Enhancement Machine (GEM): A Multi-Person Adaptive Metronome to Manipulate Sensorimotor Synchronization and Subjective Enjoyment. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16. 
• Hurley, B. K., Fink, L. K., & Janata, P. (2018). Mapping the dynamic allocation of temporal attention in musical patterns. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(11), 1694–1711. 
• Barrett, F.S., & Janata P. (2016). Neural responses to nostalgia-evoking music modeled by elements of dynamic musical structure and individual differences in affective traits. Neuropsychologia 91:234-246.
• Collins, T., Tillmann, B., Barrett, F. S., Delbé, C., & Janata, P. (2014). A combined model of sensory and cognitive representations underlying tonal expectations in music: From audio signals to behavior. Psychological Review, 121(1), 33-65.
• Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Haberman, J. M. (2012). Sensorimotor coupling in music and the psychology of the groove. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141:54-75.
• Fairhurst, M. T., Janata, P., & Keller, P. E. (2012). Being and Feeling in Sync with an Adaptive Virtual Partner: Brain Mechanisms Underlying Dynamic Cooperativity. Cerebral Cortex.
• Navarro Cebrian, A., & Janata, P. (2010). Electrophysiological Correlates of Accurate Mental Image Formation in Auditory Perception and Imagery Tasks. Brain Research. 1342:39–54. [doi: DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.04.026].
• Barrett, F. S., Grimm, K. J., Robins, R. W., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Janata, P. (2010). Music-evoked nostalgia: Affect, memory, and personality. Emotion. 10(3): 390–403.
• Janata, P. (2009). The neural architecture of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Cerebral Cortex. 19, 2579-2594.

Teaching

Professor Janata teaches in the areas of Perception, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience. His regular offerings include, Psychology of Music, and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Awards

Professor Janata was named a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, was twice a Fulbright Fellow (1990-91; 2010-11), and was also awarded the 2010 Music Has Power Award from the Institute of Music and Neurological Function.