NSERC-Create Training Grant in
Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience

Next application round: Dec 2009. Check back later for more details.

Research: In the news

Read about us in The Canada Foundation for Innovation's latest issue of their online magazine entitled The Science of Music.

We investigate the cognitive foundations (learning, memory, motor control, attention) that make it possible for people to produce complex sequences, such as playing a musical instrument or speaking a language. Our research focuses on the cognitive and motor changes that occur as people acquire performance skills. Our theoretical framework for sequence production focuses on the order and timing of event sequences such as music and speech. Both error-free and errorful behaviors by adults and children are studied, to determine at what point the memory representations for a behavior are independent of the movements that produce the behavior. We also address learning: how people use past experience to improve future behavior. How does memory for music or speech combine the "what" to do next with the "how" to do it? Our research focuses on these issues in several laboratory settings.