About

We are broadly concerned with how the brain conceptualizes complicated event sequences typical of music and speech and the conditions under which this ability breaks down. Various lines of research are currently underway to achieve this goal. Lab facilities are designed to accommodate a number of paradigms, including vocal production, keyboard production, motion capture, and perceptual tasks.

Participation

The lab welcomes students at both the graduate and undergraduate level who are interested in sequence production and auditory perception. Students in psychology, music, and other related disciplines are welcome to apply as research assistants. Because most of our studies involve music-related paradigms, a music background is highly beneficial for working in the lab. For more information, please visit our contact page.

Lab photo February 23, 2023 (Left to Right). Jacob Bernstein, Elizabeth Goldstein, Sarah MacDougall, Peter Pfordresher, Katherine Magrich, Chihiro Honda, Nicole Coleman, Adwoa Ampiah-Bonney
Lab picnic May 13, 2023 (Left to Right). Back Row: David Vollweiler, Cade Leinbach, Tim Pruitt, Anthony Nguyen, Nathan Zak, Abdullah Alam, Trevor Barnes, Jacob Bernstein, Richard Nicosia, and Peter Pfordresher. Front Row: Esther Song, Chihiro Honda, Yan Chen, Elizabeth Goldstein, Mythili Thamilchelvam, Emma Gandolfi and Sarah MacDougall.

Student Accomplishments

June 2023:
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for having her paper entitled The effect of musical training and language background on vocal imitation of pitch in speech and song accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

May 2023:
– Congrats to undergraduate research assistant, Mythili Thamilchelvam, for successfully defending her Honor’s Thesis and earning Highest Honors (the highest level of Honor awarded to a student who successfully writes and defends a Honor’s thesis)! Mythili was also the runner-up for the Feldman-Cohen Award!

April 2023:
– Congrats to graduate student, David Vollweiler, for successfully defending his Master’s Thesis entitled “Just can’t get you out of my head: Associations between involuntary musical imagery and singing accuracy!   

– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for having her paper entitled An acoustic analysis and comparison between remotely collected and in-person laboratory collected data in vocal imitation of pitch for publication in the journal Auditory Perception & Cognition!                             

– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for receiving a travel award to present a talk entitled The effects of pitch memory and imagery ability on vocal pitch imitation and a poster entitled The effect of music familiarity and expertise on neural connectivity: Retrospective analyses of a cross-cultural music comprehension study at ICMPC17-APSCOM7 this August!

March 2023:
– Congrats to graduate student, David Vollweiler, for accepting an offer of Admission to a Ph.D. program in Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas beginning this Fall!

November 2022:
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for being selected as a Trainee Representative for the Society of Music Perception and Cognition beginning January 2023!

August 2022:
– Congrats to graduate students: Nicole Coleman, Chihiro Honda and David Vollweiler for presenting their talks at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition in Portland, OR!

– Congrats to graduate student, Yan Chen, for presenting her poster at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition in Portland, OR!

April 2022
– Congrats to graduate student, Nicole Coleman, for presenting a talk at the ESM/UR/Cornell/Buffalo Music Cognition Symposium!

November 2021
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action Meeting!

July 2021
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition!

May 2021:                              – – Congrats to undergraduate research assistant, David Vollweiler, for successfully defending his Honor’s Thesis and earning High Honors! 

April 2021
– Congrats to undergraduate student, David Vollweiler, for presenting a poster at the University at Buffalo Celebration of Student Academic Excellence

– Congrats to undergraduate student, David Vollweiler, for presenting a talk at the Western New York Undergraduate Psychology Conference and at the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference!

March 2021
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting a talk at the ESM/UR/Cornell/Buffalo Music Cognition Symposium!

November 2019
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting her poster at the Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action Meeting in Montreal!

August 2019
– Congrats to graduate student, Chihiro Honda, for presenting her poster at the Society of Music Perception and Cognition!