What do individual differences in movement, group dynamics that arise from interactions among individuals, and pain sensation have in common? Music interacts with each of these behaviors in systematic ways. Individual differences in the rhythmic movements that people make are related to internal neural oscillations; the natural frequencies of those oscillations can account for a range of human behaviors, from pain perception to group synchronization. I will present findings from experimental studies of 1-, 2-, and 3-person tasks as individuals produced musical sound either by themselves (maintaining a regular rhythm) or in groups (synchronizing with partners). Behavioral, physiological, and neural differences among individuals support the idea that group dynamics arise from a complex but systematic interaction of individual differences.
Caroline Palmer is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University. She is internationally acclaimed for her interdisciplinary research in auditory cognition; she has held the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance and has directed two NSERC-Create training networks. Her studies address how complex acoustics communicate information among musicians, speakers, and listeners.
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