In the Media
Selected links to the SMART Lab in the media
Ever wonder why music makes us feel such powerful emotions? How can we use music to help people living with communication deficits? Visit the SMART lab blog for lay-summaries of current research projects.
2024
2023
February 26, 2023
Dr. Frank A. Russo weighs in on “Why Music Causes Memories to Flood Back,” an article by Marlene Cimons.
2021
November 11, 2021
Frank A. Russo discusses the effects of music on the brain with Chris Micheli and John Griffiths.
December 08, 2021
Replacing a stiff upper lip with a song in the heart. A new campaign seeks to shift our ideas about masculinity by using music to connect men to their emotions. We spoke to Humberto Carolo and Frank A. Russo.
2019
November 14, 2019
Dr. Russo discusses how technology has evolved through deaf individual’s experience of music and sound.
November 2019
BRAMS – CRBLM Lecture Series: Keynote Lecture by Dr. Frank A. Russo
SingWell: Understanding group singing in older adults from a biopsychosocial perspective.
2018
December 17, 2018
More than other social activities such as team sports or card games, group singing seems to have the ability to generate feelings of social connectedness, says Dr. Frank A. Russo, a professor of psychology at Ryerson University.
December 11, 2018
Reshmi Nair speaks with Dr. Frank A. Russo, a Professor of Psychology at Ryerson University, who is studying the effects of group singing, particularly in older adults with communication disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
December 8, 2018
Looking for a connection with others this holiday season? Professor Frank A. Russo on why it’s good for you to get out and sing your heart out with others.
July 2018
Frank A. Russo discusses the AMP test at ICMPC in Montreal.
July 2018
Gabe Nespoli discusses his dissertation work at ICMPC in Montreal.
February 2018
Sean Gilmore’s video entry to the NSERC Science, Action! Competition. His video entry featuring his research on neural entrainment received 1500 views and was listed among the top 75 entries.
December 2018
Short broadcast news piece that features some of the ideas behind our SingWell project
February 2018
Research Rounds talk by Dr. Frank A. Russo for the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
2017
September 29, 2017
Big Break: The Acting Game is an educational app that supports social communication skills in children and teens with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most individuals with ASD face challenges in typical social interactions.
TELUS’ contribution supported: program design and delivery of the app, its development, and the creation of a program guide.
September 29, 2017
A study underway at Toronto’s Ryerson University is looking at the impact of choir participation on older adults with hearing problems.
August 17, 2017
Researchers at Ryerson University’s SMART Lab are making more than just music. With the help of the Chang School, industry partners, and a couple of dozen or so seniors, they’re making a social impact as well.
August 17, 2017
Can drama and music help the emotional responsiveness of children with autism? This is the question behind “Big Break: Singing and Drama” camp, a program that engages preteens and teenagers (ages 10-14) living with autism in singing, acting and movement games.
July 20, 2017
Healthy Hearing interview with Professor Russo and graduate student Ella Dubinsky. Singing may benefit your hearing by improving the way you understand conversations which take place in noisy places— and it’s fun!
May 31, 2017
NPR interview featuring the SMART Lab, Ella Dubinsky’s master thesis work on music and hearing loss, and the Ryerson Chang School 50+ choir. (To listen to the 8.15 minute interview, press the blue and white “play” button beside the title)
March 2017
SMART Lab graduate student Ella Dubinsky presents her thesis “Singing for your brain” to the 3MT judges at Ryerson University.
2016
July 27, 2016
The Agenda in the Summer welcomes Falconer as well as Frank A. Russo, psychology professor and director of the SMART Lab at Ryerson University, to discuss the science of tone deafness.
May 22, 2016
Article on Falconer’s book “Bad Singer” describes Emoti-chair and our research on non-auditory aspects of music.
2015
November, 2015
Associate Professor of Psychology and Founder of the SMART lab, Frank A. Russo, joins Melanie Cole, MS, to discuss how music can affect your brain and body.
November 3, 2015
“The effect of music on the brain or body depends in part on its genre,” Frank A. Russo, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Ryerson University, tells Yahoo Health.
September, 2015
A choir of Canadians with Parkinson’s disease is helping researchers test how well the performers regain facial movement to express emotions.
June, 2015
Beautiful music, good side effects!
March 27, 2015
The emerging field of neuroanalytics is helping us to better understand our emotional reactions. A team of researchers at Ryerson’s SMART Lab is collaborating with WaveDNA to put these new techniques to work, gaining insights into what we feel when we listen to music.
October 2015
A new Parkinson’s study has participants literally singing its praises. A Canadian research project being done by Dr. Frank A. Russo and his master’s student, Esztella Vezer, is looking at a unique way to help tackle that problem — by studying a Toronto choir made up entirely of people with Parkinson’s disease.
2014
August 20, 2014
Several Toronto organizations have positioned themselves at a critical juncture to help children with sensory integration, emotional perception, and communication issues faced as a result of an ASD diagnosis.
July 09, 2014
The popularity of electronic music in Ottawa is rising — as is its go-to drug, MDMA. This article, in which author David Meffe explores the local scene following the tragic death of a friend, first appeared in OTTAWA Magazine’s May issue.
January 15, 2014
Beside the front doors of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, perched on the south side of Mount Royal overlooking the city, is a quote from the institute’s famous founder Wilder Penfield: “The problem of neurology is to understand man himself.”
September 2015
A choir of Canadians with Parkinson’s disease is helping researchers such as Esztella Vezer, test how well the performers regain facial movement to express emotions.
June 2015
A unique choir that we established at the SMART Lab, is testing out the idea that singing can help patients manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
April 2015
A group of 50+ students at Ryerson University known as the SMART Lab Singers, come together to sing by Lake Devo at Ryerson University on World Voice Day on April 16, 2015. This group was established from an undergraduate thesis that was conducted in the lab by Saul Moshé- Steinberg.
August 2014
We found that expressive signing restored the capacity for expressive speech so they created a Parkinson’s choir that meet weekly at the Royal Conservatory of Music.
2013
December 10, 2013
For many audience members, the appeal of the concert hall is its status as a mostly technology-free zone. Where else do crowds collectively shut off cellphones to be truly in the moment? But technology is increasingly prevalent in our lives, and its presence in the concert hall is inevitable.
2013
Join us for a giant brainstorming session on what the world’s neuroscience superstars are keeping top of mind.
Maclean’s Magazine- Let the Rhythm take Control
September 1, 2013
CBC Radio 1 Scientists taking new interest in music
August 9, 2013
CTV NEWS (National) Brain hijacked by catchy songs
March 25, 2013
April 01, 2013
New research shows that raising your voice in song can help lift the fog of depressionBy Vivien Fellegi.
February 14, 2013
The students of Eliza Van Bibber School, along with numerous supportive partners, are reviving the cultural wellbeing of the community through traditional practices. It started with a music psychology student from Ryerson University in Toronto. Arla Good had the incentive to learn about the traditional music of the North.
January 22, 2013
Nightclubs and concert venues aren’t the only places aspiring and established performers ply their trade. We take a look inside the surprisingly rich and varied seniors’ entertainment circuit.
August 2013
Dr. Frank A. Russo is a member of the Communication Team at TRI. This team recognizes the importance of communication in our daily lives in which the team helps people to understand one another and to be understood.
2012
The Synapse Magazine- Frontiers of Cross-Modal Display: The Emoti-Chair as a Model Human Cochlea
September 27, 2012
June 23, 2012
The Centre for Music Education & Cognition (C-MEC) is currently offering music lessons for special needs children in the greater Toronto area and is researching how these children benefit from a musical education.
The Grid TO- Toronto the Better
May 24, 2012
CBC North- True North
April 30, 2012
Maisonneuve Magazine – Face the Music
April 2, 2012
How can someone who passionately loves music also be a terrible singer? Tim Falconer takes up voice lessons—and discovers the surprising science of tone deafness.
April 2012
In The City: Sick Kids Art and Music Showcase
March 2012
Why do you listen to music? If you are like thousands of other Canadians, your answer may lie in music’s perceived ability to regulate your mood – to cheer you up or to calm you down.
January 2012
For many people, the hum and buzz of the city is just noise pollution. But it’s music to the ears of some Ryerson researchers.
January 2012
The sound of the street — the swish of passing cars, the rumble of the subway and the chatter of strangers — is something as city dwellers we all experience on a daily basis, whether we choose to or not.
December 2012
There’s growing evidence that music can help people struggling with disorders of the mind, like autism, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. This has given us a way to see how music can help rehabilitate damaged circuitry in the brain with disease’s such as Parkinson’s.
April 2012
Arla Good, a PhD candidate in the SMART Lab, worked with a group of children from Sick Kid’s Hospital born with hearing impairments. This group of children learned to paint or play the piano by taking part in research that explores potential benefits of arts-based education for developing communication skills.
March 2012
We are trying to find out the answer that may lie in music’s perceived ability to regulate one’s mood – to cheer you up or to calm you down. But is it possible that waves traveling through the air actually hold this awesome power, the power to influence how you are feeling?
2011
December 2011
Sencity has put on raves for the deaf in Mexico, Brazil, Finland, Spain, and South Africa, with Montreal on the agenda for 2012. What, no Toronto?
October 2011
The shared musical taste of birds and humans seems to be the product of physical characteristics common to both creatures, they say.
The Mark- How a piece of furniture built for the deaf kick-started a new kind of music
May 2011
The Mark – How Music Moves Us
January 2011
The Martlet (UVic)- Look, Mom: music helps you study – sort of
January 2011
Lanarama – CBC Radio 3 -Radio interview with Dr. Frank A. Russo
January 2011
February 2011
First time in the Emoti-Chair for Emma and Robertson Russo at the Ontario Science Centre.
2010
Nightline Dubai- Radio interview with James Piecowye on music cognition and music technology
December 2010
Nightline Dubai- Radio interview with James Piecowye on music cognition and music technology
December 2010
CBC Radio 1- As it happens Interview with Frank A. Russo
November 2010
November 2010
Dr. Frank A. Russo helps make music for the deaf.
October 2010
Songs for the deaf? That’s what a group of Ryerson professors are planning for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. Business and technology editor Matthew Braga reports.
Ryerson Today- Local band to jam at Ryerson lab in unique research collaboration
August 2010
Ryerson Today- Graduate research gets $245,000 boost: New MITACS program to support five postdoctoral fellowships
June 2010
May 2010
Most of us assume deaf people can’t register sound, let alone enjoy Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik Podzuweit taps into the deaf’s ability to feel music.
The Newspaper- Science Rendezvous kicks the lab door wide open. Story by Helene Goderis
May 2010
Ryerson Today- Fun, educational research on public display during Science Rendezvous
May 2010
March 2010
Say you’re watching a scary movie. The tension builds. The villain is about to grab someone. There’s no dialogue, just ominous music.
November 2010
Dr. Frank A. Russo is a cognitive scientist, musician, and armchair engineer. With an educational background spanning music cognition and hearing science, he is deeply interested in supporting communication of emotion in the context of music and beyond.
As Director of the SMART (Science of Music, Auditory Research and Technology) Lab at Ryerson University, Dr. Russo and his colleagues have developed a chair that uses vibrotactile stimulation to bring music to deaf individuals.
Research shows that deaf individuals have a physiological response to music that bears similarity to that of hearing individuals despite not having access to auditory stimulation.
2009
March 2010
Playing the pipe organ — it’s now as easy as walking. On Saturday night, some of Toronto’s most adventurous creators converge at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, at Jarvis and Carlton Sts., to apply a cutting-edge sheen on an instrument that’s anything but modern.
June 2009
“Step into the brain of a deaf dancer… For those with hearing…and those without.”
May 2009
Newswise — Older drivers tend to be less cautious behind the wheel when roadways are slightly more illuminated, according to a study released today by Ryerson University researchers.
June 2009
An assistant professor in Ryerson’s Department of Psychology, Russo describes himself as a cognitive scientist, lifelong musician and armchair engineer. The Director of the SMART lab, he is interested in how humans perceive and respond emotionally to music and non-verbal sound.
Ryerson Alumni Magazine- World’s first concert for the deaf Story by Colleen Mellor about concert and development of the emoti-chair
June 2009
National Public Radio -Net Effect Interview for ON THE MEDIA story on the influence of the internet and new media on brain and cognition
April 2009
Fairchild Television -Feature story/interview re: Emoti-chair. Broadcast in Canada and Hong Kong (in Cantonese)
April 2009
Earth Times- Story based on press release describes the AIRS grant. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council supports Major New Research Initiatives
March 2009
Emoti-Chair Concert Coverage
March 2009
CBC (Radio1)
2009
February 2009
Fast forward a couple decades to 2009, and the same basic process is still happening, only now, it’s a little more sophisticated. It was recently announced that Clinton’s Tavern in Toronto will hold the first rock concert for the hearing impaired on March 5 with Fox Jaws, The Dufraines and Hollywood Swank among the performers.
February 2009)
The Emoti-Chair, an audio-tactile device developed by Ryerson University, promises to ensure good vibrations for the hearing impaired by translating live music into mechanical responses.
Tages Anseiger (Switzerland)
2009
Gebaerdenwelt (Austria)
2009
Russian Independent Radio (Russia)
2009
October 2009
Emoti-chair provides new concert-going experience: Toronto musicians and Ryerson’s SMART lab fuse music and science. Featured on the Daily Planet.
March 2009
Two research teams from Ryerson University team up to put on The Emoti-chair’s world debut at Clinton’s Tavern in Toronto. Here is one of the many media stories…
2008
Ryerson News- Ryerson profs develop Emoti-Chair: Allows deaf to feel vibrations of music and sound
October 2008
Article by Sarah Hayward that reports on Ontario Science Centre Exhibition.
AT Extra / Neuromusic News– Tune in or Tune out
September 2008
Article featured by AT Extra (American Academy of Audiology) and the Neuromusic News (Mariani Foundation)
Ryerson Alumni Magazine - Mind space Story
April 2008
Article by Colleen Mellor that describes the new Bond St. Labs, highlighting the SMART lab’s infrastructure and research.
Ryersonian - Chair rekindles love of music for deaf
October 2008
Article by Leigh McEachran that reports on development of the chair.
Toronto Star - Emoti-chair’ delivers good vibrations to deaf
July 2008
Front-page story by Debra Black describing the development of assistive technology for music. Reprint in various Sun Media outlets.
Ryerson Alumni Magazine - Nosh noises
January 2008
Summary of mini-study commissioned by Toronto Star regarding snacking in theatres
2007
CBC News - Future of the landline
November 2007
Story by Nicole Tomlinson with interview on differences between face-to-face, landline, mobile and text-based communication.
August 2007
Seeing a band live is a much more engaging experience than listening to a recording at home. But it’s not just the atmosphere of a live event, it’s also the singer’s facial expressions and gestures which enhances our emotional experience.
August 2007
Die ausgeprägte Mimik vieler Sänger während eines Auftritts ist keine reine Effekthascherei: Sie vermittelt zusätzliche Informationen über die dargebotene Musik, hat ein kanadisch-australisches Psychologenduo entdeckt.
Toronto Star – Can you speak up? We’re snacking
May 2007
Article by Matthew Chung with a commissioned mini-study looking at the effects of snacking on ability to hear music and speech in entertainment venues.
Inside Popnology – Driven to Distraction Television (and web broadcast)
April 2007
Interview with Amber MacArthur on perceptual/cognitive distraction.
Walrus Magazine – Driven to Distraction
April 2007
Article by John Lorinc with interview on cognitive mechanics of distractions in our modern multimedia world. Nominated for a National Magazine Award (Science, Technology & the Environment).
Ottawa Citizen – Auto cellphone use causes stupidity By Richard Bercuson (Editorial)
March 2007
Quote regarding driver distraction.
Ryersonian – In love and so far away
February 2007
Story by Tegan Forder with interview and quote regarding communication challenges of long-distance relationships.
2006
September 2006
Controversial new airline goes wheels-up, and some of the island airport’s neighbors aren’t looking forward to the racket.
NOW Magazine – Eardrums aren’t for beating
March 2006
Story, by Elizabeth Bromstein, Volume 25, No. 30 about changes to the urban soundscape, its impact on communication and health, and design solutions for minimizing risk.