"Sandra Trehub, a psychologist and researcher whose work helped illuminate how children perceive sound, and how lullabies and music fit into their cognitive and social development, died on Jan. 20 at her home in Toronto. She was 84.

The death was confirmed by her son Andrew Cohen.

Over a half-century as a psychologist at the University of Toronto, where she began working in 1973, Dr. Trehub produced seminal work in the field that is now known as the psychology of music.

“Back then, there were very few people in psychology and neuroscience who were studying music at all as a human behavior,” Laurel Trainor, a psychologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said in a phone interview. “Sandra said, look, music is universal, we spend a lot of time and energy on music — what is its purpose? Why do we do this?”

Dr. Trehub’s research found that there are indeed universally shared responses to music among infants, beginning with sing-song-y baby talk by parents across different cultures." Read More at NY Times