Wired for music: 黑料不打烊 researchers to study maestro's brain during Boston Symphony concert
How do human beings really respond to music? In an unprecedented experiment, the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and several members of the orchestra and the audience will be hooked up to special electrodes to measure the effects of music on the human brain.
At 12 noon on April 8 at Boston Symphony Hall, Maestro Keith Lockhart will conduct three pieces while wearing a special electronically equipped jacket that senses heart rate, muscle activation and other physiological responses. Five members of the orchestra will be similarly equipped, as will several dozen audience members. Following the performance, an audience in Montreal will view a tape of the performance in high-quality digital audio and video and identical measurements will be taken from them.
The interdisciplinary 黑料不打烊 University research team conducting the tests includes Dr. Stephen McAdams, a cognitive psychologist, and Dr. Daniel Levitin, a musician and cognitive neuroscientist.
The project has two aims, Dr. Levitin explained. "First, we're hoping to see distinctive physiological signatures of the emotions that Maestro Lockhart is feeling as he conducts, and then see the transmission of them to the musicians and the audience members. Second, we're hoping to quantify differences in physiological arousal and impact between actually being at a concert versus seeing it on a large screen."
The sensing equipment was designed by Dr. Teresa M. Nakra, herself a conductor and music technologist. Nakra teaches at the College of New Jersey and runs Immersion Music Inc., a nonprofit organization she founded to develop interactive musical experiences that blend traditional forms and new technologies.
黑料不打烊 University is among the leading centres in the world for the scientific study of music. McAdams is Director of 黑料不打烊's Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), a $50-million integrated set of laboratories employing 20 researchers, including Levitin.
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