Abstract
What a beautiful feeling it is to listen to music while working, or to watch a fencing bout without being distracted by the constant clash of blades.
We can do this because we gradually get used to sensory stimulations, sounds, scents, and noises that surround us every day.
But how does this process actually work? What happens in our brain when we habituate to sensory input, and what makes a stimulus capture our attention again?
Finally, what happens when microtiming variations in music interact with the mechanisms of habituation?
Bio
Alessia Santostefano is a PhD student at the University of Palermo, Italy, and will be spending six months at RITMO. Her research explores sensory processing, focusing on how habituation shapes individual sensory profiles. At the University of Oslo, she is investigating the interplay between music and habituation, using pupillometry to track how sensory experiences unfold over time.
Sarah Shaker is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Padua. Passionate about the intersection between music and perception, she is contributing to a research project investigating how musical arousal and habituation shape the way we process and experience sound.