EJN: Earlier, you talked a little bit about the boom of neuroscience, especially music and neuroscience, over the last couple of decades. Looking forward, what do you think will be different about either the field of neuroscience in 10-15 years?
TRAINOR: One direction I think the field is going is toward conducting research in more naturalistic settings to better understand human behaviour. Another is to understand not just individuals, but how individuals interact with each other. And both of these directions will be fueled by advances in, and miniaturization of, mobile wearable sensors, as well as advances in real-time machine learning (AI) processing. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that I direct the McMaster Institute for Music in the Mind. Ten years ago, I led the opening of the LIVELab, which is a 106-seat concert hall equipped with tools for measuring all kinds of responses, in which we are trying to embody these new directions. First, it is totally sound isolated from the outside and has a naturally dead acoustic. We have virtual sound system of 76 loudspeakers 28 microphones, that can instantaneously change the acoustics from, for example, simulating a concert hall, a subway station, a noisy restaurant, or an outdoor space. We can make sounds appear to be localized anywhere in space. We do studies examining at how musicians and audiences of over 100 are interacting through their movements using our motion capture system. We can measure brainwaves in multiple people at the same time to see when their brains synchronize and under what conditions. We can measure heart rates and other physiological responses. We have mobile eye-tracking glasses that attach to a cell phone, and can measure where audiences are attending during performances. In the future, I think we’ll see more research of this type.
I also think we’re only at the beginning of how we can use music for health and wellbeing. For example, using music with children with autism, using music to treat depression, studies in the elderly with hearing impairment to see how we can better help them so they’re less socially isolated, using auditory rhythms to improve motor performance. I think there’s so many ways in which music can make a huge difference, and we’re really just starting to explore them.