Graduate Student: Martin Lawless, Ph.D. 2017

        

Concert hall research typically uses surveys, formal listening tests, or sensory analysis techniques to evaluate an individual’s perception of a space. Though this subjective testing approach may provide good insight into the perceptions of listeners, a number of factors can influence the reliability of the subjective data when participants are asked to explicitly rate room acoustics stimuli. This project aims to identify and utilize functional neuroimaging techniques as a means to objectively evaluate the implicit emotional response to room acoustics. The current work has two objectives: 1) investigate the brain’s auditory response to room acoustics stimuli with differences in perceived reverberance and 2) identify if functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an appropriate tool to measure listener preference of room acoustics by examining the brain’s reward network.

Project Publications:

• Lawless, M.S.* and Vigeant, M.C. (2020). “Sensitivity of the human auditory cortex and reward network to reverberant musical stimuli.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 147:2121-2134
• Lawless, M. (2018). “Assessing the Auditory and Reward Responses to Room Acoustics and Music Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” Ph.D. Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University.
• Lawless, M.S.*, and Vigeant, M.C. (2018). “Examining the auditory cortex response to musical stimuli with differences in timbre and reverberation.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 143:1933
• Lawless, M.S.* and Vigeant, M.C. (2017). “Effects of test method and participant musical training on preference ratings of stimuli with different reverberation times.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 142: 2258-2272
• Lawless, M.S.* and Vigeant, M.C. (2017). “Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the emotional response to room acoustics (A).” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141:3617 [Invited]
• Lawless, M.S. and Vigeant, M.C. (2016). “Comparisons between room acoustics preferences of musicians and non-musicians regarding solo-instrument and orchestral motifs in auralizations (A).” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 139:2114 [Invited]
• Lawless, M.S. and Vigeant, M.C. (2015). “Investigating the emotional response to room acoustics: an fMRI study.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 138(4):EL417-EL423
• Lawless, M.S. and Vigeant, M.C. (2015). “Investigation of the effects of room acoustics stimuli on reward regions in the brain.” Inst. of Acoust. 9^th Int. Conf. on Auditorium Acoust.Paris, France, 9 pages
• Lawless, M.S. and Vigeant, M.C. (2015). “Comparisons between the preferences of musicians and non-musicians in response to varying room acoustics using two different testing methods (A).” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 137:2357
• Lawless, M.S. and Vigeant, M.C. (2014). “Measuring the impact of room acoustics on emotional responses to music using functional neuroimaging: A pilot study (A).” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 136:2272 [Best Student Paper Award]