Lola L. Cuddy (born 1939) is a Canadian psychologist recognized for her contributions to the field of

music psychology Music psychology, or the psychology of music, may be regarded as a branch of both psychology and musicology. It aims to explain and understand musical behaviour and experience, including the processes through which music is perceived, created, r ...

. She is a professor emerita in the Department of Psychology at Queen's University in Kingston,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Biography

Cuddy was born in 1939 and grew up in a musical family in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

. A trained pianist, she completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at United College (now the

University of Winnipeg The University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg, UW) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and kinesiology and applied health as well as gr ...

) in 1959, while also earning a diploma in music. She earned a master's degree (1961) and a PhD (1965) in psychology from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, under the supervision of

Endel Tulving Endel Tulving (born May 26, 1927) is an Estonian-born Canadian experimental psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist. In his research on human memory he proposed the distinction between semantic and episodic memory. Tulving is a professor emerit ...

. In 1965, Cuddy and her husband, Mel Wiebe (a scholar of Victorian literature), left Toronto to accept positions at Queen's University. In 1969, Cuddy established the Music Cognition Lab at Queen's University, the first music psychology laboratory in Canada and one of the first in the world. Her research program has examined a wide range of topics within music psychology, including

melodic expectation In music cognition and musical analysis, the study of melodic expectation considers the engagement of the brain's predictive mechanisms in response to music. For example, if the ascending musical partial octave "do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-..." is heard, ...

absolute pitch Absolute pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is a rare ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone. AP may be demonstrated using linguistic labeling ("naming" a note), associating ...

, and effects of musical training. A recent line of research explored music processing among individuals with

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. This work garnered media attention for the finding that patients with memory loss associated with dementia may be able to maintain musical memories. Cuddy served as editor of the journal ''

Music Perception ''Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by University of California Press five times a year. It was founded by Diana Deutsch. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has ...

'' from 2002 to 2017, and as a consulting editor to the journals ''Musicae Scientiae'' and ''Psychomusicology''. She was the president of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition from 2001 to 2002.

Honours and awards

* 1987: Fellow,

Canadian Psychological Association The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) is the primary organization representing psychologists throughout Canada. It was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950. Its objectives are to imp ...

* 2005: David Horrobin Prize for Medical Theory * 2011: Lifetime Achievement Award, Society for Music Perception and Cognition * 2011: Fellow,

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

* 2017: Fellow, Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science

Selected works

* * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuddy, Lola 1939 births People from Winnipeg Living people Canadian psychologists Canadian women psychologists Cognitive psychologists Music psychologists Queen's University at Kingston faculty Women cognitive scientists University of Winnipeg alumni University of Toronto alumni