Events

Inside the MediaLab: Tools, Projects, Possibilities

The MediaLab provides a wide range of technologies—including EEG, motion capture, eye tracking, and audio and video recording and editing tools—for researchers seeking to enhance their work with modern empirical methods. This presentation offers a virtual tour of the MediaLab and introduces its facilities and technologies. From producing a simple podcast to conducting complex experimental studies, the MediaLab has something to offer researchers at every level of technical experience.

The MediaLab’s facilities are available free of charge to members of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies. The presentation will explain how to request access, which requirements must be met, and what possibilities and limitations should be considered when planning a project. There will also be time for questions.

Short CV

Jörg Mühlhans has headed the MediaLab since it opened in 2019. He specializes in quantitative methods for measuring human movement, particularly motion capture and eye tracking. Alongside his own research, he teaches these technologies within the Digital Humanities curriculum at the University of Vienna. His mission at the MediaLab is to advance empirical methods in the humanities and use science communication to make research accessible beyond academia.

Neural Entrainment to Familiarized and Unfamiliarized Song in 7-Months-Old Infants

Throughout development, infants enculturate to music through exposure to song. Studies have shown that the brain activity of infants can synchronize with musical as well as with linguistic aspects. However, it is unknown whether when confronted with song, a stimulus which combines musical and linguistic aspects, infants’ brain activity synchronizes preferentially to one over the other. In the presented experiment we used EEG to expand our knowledge on how song is perceived in infants, especially regarding entrainment to musical and/or linguistic aspects presented in familiar or unfamiliar songs.

Short CV

Ingrid Schachner is currently pursuing her PhD at the Department of Musicology at the University of Vienna where she also studied during her bachelor’s and master’s. Her research revolves around song perception in infancy and whether infants are recognizing song based on musical or linguistic aspects which she targets by analyzing EEG data.

Musical familiarity in the Brain

Musical familiarity and memories are fascinating characteristics of music, as they can already occur after shorts periods of exposure and remain encoded over long periods of time. Three interconnected experiments will aim to answer questions regarding song familiarity, task instructions, familiarity encoding and exposure to music, as well as age related differences of neural processing of music. The methodological approaches include the usage of EEG, coding and questionnaires and will be conducted at the MediaLab of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies. The valuable contribution and novelty to musical memory research can be found in the experimental approaches and the holistic analytical view over all age groups, that will be presented in my talk.

Short CV

Albert Stickler is currently doing his PhD studies at the Department of Musicology of the University of Vienna. His current research revolves around musical memory, where he investigates various brain responses to music and language in young and old people. His employment extends this research to singing-based interventions for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Chasing the Swing. A Motion Capture Study of Jazz Dance

The research project „Chasing the Swing“ uses motion capture to study the most popular swing dance of the 30‘s and 40‘s. Lindy Hoppers from the Vienna scene dance in the motion capture lab of the MediaLab, allowing us to investigate the connection between music and movement features. We use the MoCap Toolbox, a MATLAB library built for analyzing motion capture data, to extract both fundamental and higher-order kinematic features. These are then correlated with the music features of the various stimuli. The project aims at understanding how jazz dancers doing spontaneous and free movement embody and interpret the music with their partner in a social context.

Short CV

Sumner Williams received his BM in trumpet from the UNC school of the arts, going on to complete his postgraduate work in musicology at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on early jazz music and dances of the 30‘s and 40‘s. His PhD project, Chasing the Swing, aims at understanding of the connection between jazz music and jazz dance.