Do. 15. 12. 2022, Hebelstraße 10, Raum 03-013, 14:00 Uhr: KW-Kolloquium: Connor Spiech: Oscillatory Attention in Groove

Abstract: Attention is not constant but rather fluctuates over time. In order to efficiently parse the world around us, these attentional fluctuations must be temporally realigned to prioritize the processing of certain events over others. The pleasurable urge to move to music (termed ‘groove’ by music psychologists) offers a particularly convenient case study to investigate these oscillatory processes because it engenders entrained/synchronous movements and varies predictably with rhythmic complexity along an inverted U-shaped curve. Using phase coherence measures in pupillometry and electroencephalography (EEG), we demonstrate that attention allocation becomes predictively aligned to the beat of musical stimuli both while the stimuli are physically present or when the beat is merely imagined during silence, respectively. This entrainment to the beat worsens as the beat becomes increasingly obscured by rhythmic complexity. Furthermore, overall attentional demands, as indexed by evoked pupil dilation, were highest at moderate rhythmic complexity where stimuli were rated grooviest, perhaps indicating a resource-consuming process of prediction error correction. 

Zoom-Link:

https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/69965024181?pwd=MnROeHQ4TUlaZUxrYnpsTXVtc0lwZz09