Professor of psychology

For Andrea Halpern, music is more than a hobby, it's also her area of research. A cognitive psychologist, she has been a leader in the field of music perception, as well as a singer with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale.

Halpern's research has focused on studying music memory as "a way of generalizing memory phenomena." She has used music to examine which areas of the brain are responsible for auditory processing. She has found that many of the brain areas active when we perceive music are also active when we imagine music. As she says, "the idea that we can 'hear' a song in our heads has physiological legitimacy to some extent."

She also has looked at the question, "What do people learn about a piece of music on first exposure?" By looking at how individuals learn music, Halpern is "trying to understand how memory works at the 'front end' as information is entered into our brains."

During her 22-year Bucknell career, Halpern has mentored more than 65 students, involving them in her research. Last year, she was named a Council on Undergraduate Research Fellow. She was one of only two faculty members in the United States honored for her work with undergraduate researchers.

Teaching Areas

• Cognition
• Neuropsychology
• Issues in behavioral research

Research Interests

• Cognition
• Imagining and remembering nonverbal material such as music
• Cognitive aging
• Neural correlates of memory and imagery

Recent Publications

• Halpern, A. R., Zatorre, R. J., Bouffard, M. & Johnson, J. (2004). Behavioral and neural correlates of perceived and imagined musical timbre. Neuropsychologia, 42, 1281-1292.
• Halpern, A. R. & Bartlett, J. C. (2002). Aging and memory for music: A review. Psychomusicology, 18, 10-27.
• Halpern, A.R. & O'Connor, M.G. (2000). Implicit memory for music in Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology 14, 391-397.

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