Musical rhythm has a remarkable capacity to move our minds and bodies. When we listen to “Blame it on the Boogie” by The Jacksons, it is difficult to refrain from tapping a foot or bobbing the head to the beat. This event will illustrate how the theory of predictive processing can help us understand how rhythm is processed and why we move to certain kinds of music more than others. Importantly, music is fundamentally a social phenomenon, in that we listen to, synchronize to, and make music together. This music interaction is typically based on agreeing on predictive structures such as meter or tonality. The speaker will discuss new studies showing how predictive coding can be applied to understand the dynamics involved in interpersonal synchronization using a minimal tapping paradigm, where two individuals are placed in separate rooms with headphones and EEG equipment and asked to tap together in different conditions.
Event Speakers
- Peter Vuust, Professor of Neuroscience at Aarhus University
- Moderated by Jessie Cox, PhD Student in Music at Columbia University
Event Information
Free and open to the public. Columbia University ID holders and invited guests may attend in person; others may attend on Zoom. Registration is required via Eventbrite. For more information, please visit the event webpage.
Please contact the group organizer, Jessie Cox at [email protected] with any questions. The Comparing Domains of Improvisation series is sponsored by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program at Columbia University.
