March 2012 MIMM Journal Club

Location
McMaster University, Psychology Building, Room 316

The March MIMM Journal Club meeting will be held on Friday, March 16, 12:30pm. McMaster Psychology Building, room 316.

At this month’s meeting, Dr. Gavin Bidelman will be talking about “Neurophysiological origins of consonance, dissonance, and the hierarchy of musical pitch”

This meeting will be more of a talk than a discussion, but there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

More on Dr. Bidelman’s research:

“My research interests are in the auditory and cognitive neurosciences. I am interested in how speech and music are encoded within the brain over various time courses. We use typical electrophysiological techniques (EEG/MEG) and imaging (fMRI) to investigate how linguistic and musically relevant sound features are encoded at both pre-attentive and cognitive levels of processing. One long-term goal of my research is to reveal how the influence of extensive experience (e.g., musical training) shapes the neural encoding of complex sounds such as speech and music. For example, can musical ability enhance the neural processing and subsequent perception of speech? Such questions have important implications for understanding the connections (or lack thereof) between the neural codes of language and music. In addition, the plasticity afforded by experience/training may offer important clinical benefit, e.g., it may counteract some of the negative declines that come with ageing or improve language function in individuals with language based disorders.”

To RSVP or for more information, please Contact Us.