Episode Details

“Our brain really prioritizes vocal signals. They’re super important to the brain because human communication is a really big priority for us as a species. It’s a deep signal in our brain, right? And so, we were seeing a stronger reaction to the screams than to the music, and that sort of makes sense. There were more intricacies to that, but I can’t really remember the exact brain areas and all that. But it was cool to see that. Yeah, it is sort of mimicking, but our brain really separates them. You know, it may still get sort of a response, a same kind of fearful response, but it’s not going to be as powerful as the voice, um, which makes sense because music is not real, right? There’s a difference between a real stimulus and this sort of artistic one. Yeah, so it was interesting.” – Caitlyn Trevor

This episode’s guest is an award-winning researcher and musician with over a decade of experience studying how people perceive and respond to sound. She holds a PhD in Music Theory from Ohio State University and has published her work in top journals. She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship to study music and neuroscience, and she’s professionally certified in user research. As a musician, she has a Master’s in Cello Performance, has composed an award-winning short film score, and has designed sound for theater and film. At SonicUXR, she leads with both credibility and creative empathy, equipping sound teams with the tools to create more intentional, impactful audio.

Her name is Caitlyn Trevor, and her work is reshaping how sound is understood, valued, and designed across industries. If you’ve ever wondered how sound really works on us, this conversation will change the way you listen.

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(00:00) – Lighting a Musical Fire

Our conversation starts with Caitlyn’s early impressions of sound, particularly the moment that sparked her love of orchestral music. “I came across on the floor like a little cassette tape and a cassette player, and I popped it in and just hit play while we were chatting, and it was the Lord of the Rings soundtrack,” she recalls. “I was a little too young when it came out, the first one, and I was just captivated by it. I mean, I was like, ‘Wow, what is this?’” We discuss the chance encounter during her musical studies that turned her focus towards music cognition and the neuroscience behind sound. “There was a lecture I went to totally by chance,” she tells us. “It was a new music theory professor, and the lecture was about music cognition, and I had never heard of it before. And I was like, ‘This is just the coolest field I’ve ever heard of.’ And I totally was on board after that.”

(15:00) – Pianto Sighs and Psycho Violins

Our discussion turns to her research on the connection between music and the brain’s primal response to voices. “In sad music,” Caitlyn explains, “there’s something called the pianto topic, which is essentially just a half-step falling motion, like, which is supposed to mimic a sigh. But, yo