I will be giving a seminar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) this Friday 7th June at 3:30pm on "What Music Cognition and Statistical Learning can tell us about human learning and memory." Free and open to the public. Venue = SUTD Library Training Room.
Abstract: Whether engaging in conversation, listening to music, or playing sports, implicit sequential prediction is crucial to human cognition and behaviour. This talk will examine how expectation mechanisms, in a domain general capacity and in music in particular, underlie efficient information processing, learning, and memory in humans. The structure of information that we encounter in daily life may be quantified in terms of statistical or rule-based approaches, and compared to performance on perceptual and behavioural tasks, to shed light on how the mind perceives the world. Comparisons will be made between statistical learning (SL; the ability to extract statistical regularities from the environment) in speech perception and music cognition. Implications of SL for higher education will be shared, as well as preliminary results from a novel SL task for cognitive assessment. Finally, Dr. Agres will discuss how findings from auditory cognitive science and computational modelling may elucidate processes of learning and creativity.