Cognition & Behaviour Cluster Event Leads to Successful Collaboration

(news released on: 14 October 2008 )

A chance meeting during a 2007 Cognition & Behaviour Cluster event proved fruitful for Dr. Trevor Penny & Dr. Lonce Wyse. After some post-event conversations, a collaborative research project entitled: “Listening Strategies for New Media; Experience and Expectation” was born.

Their research work has been granted $250,000 by the Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund. Working with them on the 2-year project are a PhD student, a Master student and a research assistant.
They will study listening strategies and expectation in the context of a variety of new musical forms using a combination of behavioural and brain imaging techniques.

The project focuses specifically on listening strategies that explain expectation and emotional responses to new kinds of music. The ultimate goal of their research is to understand how humans construct sense of today’s rich sonic media environments. A second goal is to identify and understand the role of learning, environment, and cultural differences in these musical processes.

The results will yield insights into timing, expectation, auditory object formation and the role of exposure and cultural background in response to a variety of complex musical stimuli, contributing to the understanding of auditory cognition and making particularly novel contributions to the understanding of emerging musical practices.