Meeting Topic: McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind
Moderator Name: Jim Cox
Speaker Name: Dr. Laurel Trainor and associates, McMaster University, Hamilton ON
Meeting Location: Psychology Building, McMaster University, Hamilton ON
The presentation centred around research into the development of the infant human brain in sensitivity to consonance and dissonance (6 months), development of sensitivity to scales and harmony, and the Auditory Cortex(2-4 months). Development of virtual pitch processing and the neural basis of vocal imitation was discussed.
Early results of their research indicates babies can tell mismatched tones by 4 months., while at 2 months they can barely detect it. The auditory cortex changes greatly between 2 and 4 months. You can also analyze this in the frequency domain. 7 month olds can hear missing fundamentals, but 4 months old can't.
After a presentation, we toured the research labs and discussed the testing methodology and how data is interpreted.
