Isabelle Peretz

Professor of Psychology, University of Montreal, Canada Research Chair and Casavant Chair in neurocognition of music

Education PhD, Université libre de Bruxelles

https://peretzlab.ca/lab/director/isabelle-peretz/

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Fall 2024

Research focus while a Bridging Divides Scholar

New immigrants who do not speak the language of their adopted community face the challenging tasks of learning the language while also integrating into an unfamiliar society. The available research on group singing suggests that it would be an ideal option to tackle issues around communication, integration, and well-being for new immigrants, but to date there is no quantitative evidence for its value. To provide evidence, we need randomized controlled trials over many sites in Quebec and Ontario, that can determine whether choir, and group music making in general, is an efficient and effective strategy to promote well-being, integration and language learning.

Immigrant Health and Well-Being Theme

Career achievements

Isabelle Peretz is Professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal. Her leadership has been recognized through an endowed Casavant Research Chair (2004) and a Canada Research Chair (2007) in neurocognition of music. Both chairs are the first ever dedicated to the field of neuroscience of music worldwide. In 2005, she co-founded the International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), which she directed until June 2018. BRAMS is a unique multi-university consortium that is jointly affiliated to Université de Montréal and McGill University.

Her research focuses on the musical potential of ordinary people, its neural correlates, its heritability and its specificity relative to language. She is renowned on the biological foundations of music. Currently, she pursues research on singing in both Montreal and University of Melbourne (Australia) because singing is the most widespread musical activity that holds the potential to be a cost-effective source of social and health capital for persons across all ages and of all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds

Dr. Peretz has been awarded several prizes. She is a Member of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Quebec, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, of the American Psychological Association, and now an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Relevant publications

Peretz, I. (2019). How music sculpts our brain. Odile Jacob.

Dalla Bella, S., Giguère, J.-F., & Peretz, I. (2007). Singing proficiency in the general population. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2427111 (external link)

Racette, A., & Peretz, I. (2007). Learning lyrics: To sing or not to sing? Memory & Cognition. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193490 (external link)

Peretz, I. (2006). The nature of music from a biological perspective. Cognition, 100, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.004 (external link)

Peretz, I., & Coltheart, M. (2003). Modularity of music processing. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 688-691. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1083 (external link)

Peretz, I. (1993). Auditory agnosia for melodies. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 10, 21-56.