Nora Rose Serres

• Francesca Talamini, Massimo Grassi, Gianmarco Altoè, Elvira Brattico, Anne Caclin & Barbara Carretti [Show all 115 contributors for this article] (2026). Music Ensemble: a large dataset on musicianship, cognition, and personality in musicians and nonmusicians. Scientific Data. 13(1). doi: 10.1038/s41597-026-06654-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Music Ensemble dataset is a large-scale, cross-national database that provides detailed information about the musical, cognitive, personality, and demographic profiles of young adult musicians and nonmusicians. Data were collected from 1438 participants (aged 18–30) across thirty-five research sites in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Participants completed an in-person, in-lab battery of objective tests, including measures of verbal, visuospatial and musical short-term memory, executive functions (updating component), nonverbal reasoning, verbal comprehension, and music perception skills. The battery also included standardized and custom self-report questionnaires assessing music sophistication, music reward, personality traits, socioeconomic status, and demographic characteristics. Music Ensemble was preregistered, and the research protocol followed a standardized procedure across sites. The dataset also includes a large subsample of musicians and nonmusicians that are pair-matched for age, gender, and education (678 pairs). It enables well-powered investigations into the relationship between musical expertise and individual differences in cognition, personality, and demographic variables. It is also suitable for training in statistical and psychometric methods.

• Baltazar, Margarida, Bamford, Joshua S., Danso, Andrew, Haapala, Eero A., Hansen, Niels Chr. & Knittle, Keegan [Show all 15 contributors for this article] (2026). Frontiers | Does music support executive functions and affective responses during acute exercise? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1714707. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  IntroductionMaintaining a steady running pace despite physical or mental fatigue often engages executive functions. These functions may contribute to sustain...

• Massimo Grassi, Francesca Talamini, Gianmarco Altoè, Elvira Brattico, Anne Caclin & Barbara Carretti [Show all 110 contributors for this article] (2025). Do Musicians Have Better Short-Term Memory Than Nonmusicians? A Multilab Study. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS). ISSN 2515-2459. 8(4). doi: 10.1177/25152459251379432. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Musicians are often regarded as a positive example of brain plasticity and associated cognitive benefits. This emerges when experienced musicians (e.g., musicians with more than 10 years of music training and practice) are compared with nonmusicians. A frequently observed behavioral finding is a short-term memory advantage of the former over the latter. Although available meta-analysis reported that the effect size of this advantage is medium (Hedges’s g = 0.5), no literature study was adequately powered to estimate reliably an effect of such size. This multilab study has been ideated, realized, and conducted in lab by several groups that have been working on this topic. Our ultimate goal was to provide a community-driven shared and reliable estimate of the musicians’ short-term memory advantage (if any) and set a method and a standard for future studies in neuroscience and psychology comparing musicians and nonmusicians. Thirty-three research units recruited a total of 600 experienced musicians and 600 nonmusicians, a number that is sufficiently large to estimate a small effect size (Hedges’s g = 0.3) with a high statistical power (i.e., 95%). Subsequently, we measured the difference in short-term memory for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli. We also looked at cognitive, personality, and socioeconomic factors that might mediate the difference. Musicians had better short-term memory than nonmusicians for musical, verbal, and visuospatial stimuli with an effect size of, respectively, Hedges’s g s = 1.08 (95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.94, 1.22]; large), 0.16 (95% CI = [0.02 0.30]; very small), and 0.28 (95% CI = [0.15, 0.41]; small). This work sets the basis for sound research practices in studies comparing musicians and nonmusicians and contributes to the ongoing debate on the possible cognitive benefits of musical training.

• Audun Rosslund, Natalia Kartushina, Nora Rose Serres & Julien Mayor (2025). Early Vocabulary Acquisition: From Birth Order Effect to Child-to-Caregiver Ratio. Child Development. ISSN 0009-3920. 96(4), p. 1343–1353. doi: 10.1111/cdev.14251. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Growing up with multiple siblings might negatively affect language development. This study examined the associations between birth order, sibling characteristics and parent-reported vocabulary size in 6163 Norwegian 8- to 36-month-old children (51.4% female). Results confirmed that birth order was negatively associated with vocabulary, yet exhibited a U-shaped pattern. A data-driven measure of “child-to-caregiver ratio” in the household was developed, in which old-enough siblings—females 1–3 years earlier than males—were considered caregivers for their younger siblings. This measure explained variance in vocabulary better than birth order, and indicates sex-differences in the age at which older siblings contribute to, rather than deplete, available resources. A child-to-caregiver ratio might better capture the interplay between language-learning resources and demands within households.

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• Audun Rørvik Rosslund, Nora Rose Serres, Natalia Kartushina & Julien Mayor (2025). Early language acquisition: From birth order effect to child-to-caregiver ratio. Full text in Research Archive
• Nora Rose Serres, Julien Mayor, Natalia Kartushina & Audun Rørvik Rosslund (2025). Dialectal variability shapes early language development: Evidence from mispronunciation sensitivity in 13-month-old infants. Full text in Research Archive
• Audun Rørvik Rosslund, Natalia Kartushina, Nora Rose Serres & Julien Mayor (2025). Negative sibling effects revised: When a sibling becomes a caregiver. Full text in Research Archive
• Cathrine Montero Moen & Nora Rose Serres (2025). Skled ned Rampestreken: – Skikkelig flaut - andalsnes-avis.no. [Journal]. Åndalsnes Avis. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Da Nora Serres (31) kom til Romsdalen på ferie i 2020, ante hun lite om at fjellene skulle bli et hjem.

• Nora Rose Serres, Julien Mayor & Natalia Kartushina (2023). The role of dialect variability on mispronunciation sensitivity: An insight to infants’ early language development from a Norwegian context. Full text in Research Archive
• Nora Rose Serres, Ulf Toelch & Erik Løhre (2023). How to adopt Open Science in the Academic Curriculum? [Internet]. Panel Discussion (recording on YouTube). Full text in Research Archive
• Nora Rose Serres & Sarah Sauvé (2023). Registered Reports and Bayesian Fanclub with Nora Serres. [Internet]. Podcast (Apple, Spotify, Android). Full text in Research Archive

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