Thanks to the support of the Keio Gijuku Academic Development Fund, we were able to successfully carry out our proposed research, publish original research, and give presentations at international conferences.

Specifically, the fund allowed us to perform research that we published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Behavioral and Brain Sciences) and conference proceedings (e.g., Proceedings of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval). We have also had 8 abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2021 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.

Our major findings were that automated analyses reveal cross-cultural variation and similarities in the world's music that can help us understand how and why music evolved. We obtained these findings using new methods from computer science and cognitive science to analyze and compare melodies, rhythms, timbre, and other aspects of music.

In the future we hope to build on these results to apply these techniques at larger scales. Based on our success during FY2020, I am optimistic that next year we will be in a good position to extend and publish the results of this year's research. We are grateful for the financial support of the Keio Gijuku Academic Development Fund.