Yale Department of Music Guest Lecture Series: Justin London (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music, Cognitive Science, and the Humanities, Carleton College)
February 24, 2017, 1:30pm
Stoeckel Hall, Room 106
Talk Title:
Cross-Modal Perception of Musical Tempo
Abstract:
As every musician knows, tempo is more than simply a matter of a metronome setting or the rate of the shortest notes on the rhythmic surface of the music. Visual cues may also affect perceived tempo, and when they do, we have have to integrate both auditory and visual information into a coherent percept of musical speed and motion. This talk will present results from a recent study on the effect of beat rate, event density, motor behavior, and observed motion (i.e., watching someone else dance to the music) on tempo perception. The importance of using ecologically valid stimuli (i.e., real music) in experimental studies of music perception in general and cross-modal perception in particular will also be discussed.
Speaker Website: http://people.carleton.edu/~jlondon/