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Virtual PhD defense: Patricia Alves Da Mota

Brain dynamics of predictability and improvisation: Evidence from jazz pianists and autistic listeners

06.05.2020 | Hella Kastbjerg

Dato tir 12 maj
Tid 10:00 12:00
Sted Due to COVID-19, the defence will be held online via Zoom

Tuesday May 12 at 10.00 am Patricia Alves Da Mota will defend her thesis entitled: Brain dynamics of predictability and improvisation: Evidence from jazz pianists and autistic listeners

The defence is public and will be conducted online by using the Zoom platform. 
For more information, please contact PhD student Patricia Alves da Mota, email: patricia.alvesdamota@clin.au.dk 

PRESS RELEASE:

New PhD project from Aarhus University investigates the brain dynamics of predictability and improvisation. The project was carried out by Patricia Alves Da Mota who is defending her dissertation on 12/05/2020.

There is something unique about music that makes us all synchronise as one large unit. Regardless of cultural background, musical expertise, listening interests, context, mood or biological factors, we all share brain mechanisms with highly convergent architectures to make sense of and enjoy music.

Creating music is a remarkably dynamic process and a highly prized form of creativity. In jazz, the ability to improvise is the result of harmonious interplay between complex emotional, cognitive and motor processes, which can produce an emotionally and aesthetically pleasing output. Jazz improvisers spontaneously create and evaluate new arrangements of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic patterns, combined with fine motor movements, to produce novel musical sequences ‘on the fly’. The link between musical creativity and pleasure, for both musician and audience, relies strongly on the ability to maintain balanced levels of predictability, energy load and emotional engagement, during music production. However, the preferred balance of predictability is changed in individuals with autism, who exhibit a stronger preference for familiarity and predictability. In this PhD project, a methological framework is constructed to elucidate the brain mechanisms sustaining the complex relationship between creativity, predictability and pleasure.

OPPONENTS:

Professor Sune Jespersen (committeee chairman)
CFIN, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University

Professor Dimitri Van de Ville
Institute of Bioengineering/Center for Neuroprosthetics, EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne & Deparment of Radiology and Medical Informatics, University of Geneva

Professor Petri Toiviainen
Department of Music, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

 

Arrangement, Forskning, Alle grupper, Musicinthebrain, Musicinthebrain, Ph.d.-forsvar