@article {2023, title = {Intra- and inter-brain coupling and activity dynamics during improvisational music therapy with a person with dementia: an explorative EEG-hyperscanning single case study}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology: Cognitive Science}, volume = {14:1155732}, year = {2023}, month = {09/2023}, abstract = {Objective: Real-life research into the underlying neural dynamics of improvisational music therapy, used with various clinical populations, is largely lacking. This single case study explored within-session differences in musical features and in within- and between-brain coupling between a Person with Dementia (PwD) and a music therapist during a music therapy session. Methods: Dual-EEG from a music therapist and a PwD (male, 31 years) was recorded. Note density, pulse clarity and synchronicity were extracted from audio-visual data. Three music therapists identified moments of interest and no interest (MOI/MONI) in two drum improvisations. The Integrative Coupling Index, reflecting time-lagged neural synchronization, and musical features were compared between the MOI and MONI. Results: Between-brain coupling of 2 Hz activity was increased during the MOI, showing anteriority of the therapist{\textquoteright}s neural activity. Within-brain coupling for the PwD was stronger from frontal and central areas during the MOI, but within-brain coupling for the therapist was stronger during MONI. Differences in musical features indicated that both acted musically more similar to one another during the MOI. Conclusion: Within-session differences in neural synchronization and musical features highlight the dynamic nature of music therapy. Significance: The findings contribute to a better understanding of social and affective processes in the brain and (interactive) musical behaviors during specific moments in a real-life music therapy session. This may provide insights into the role of such moments for relational-therapeutic processes.}, keywords = {brain coupling, dementia, EEG, improv, Music Therapy}, doi = {doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1155732}, author = {Clemens Maidhof and Viktor M{\"u}ller and Olivier Lartillot and Kat Agres and Jodie Bloska and Rie Asano and Helen Odell-Miller and J{\"o}rg Fachner} } @proceedings {2022, title = {Improving Students{\textquoteright} Practice and Performance of Music by Incorporating Cognitive Science into Conservatory Curricula}, year = {2022}, month = {07/2022}, pages = {1-13}, abstract = {Relatively few music educators integrate relevant research findings from the field of cognitive science into their classroom teaching, despite the many benefits that engaging with this area can have for the practice and performance of music. In this paper, we examine a new module that aimed to teach cognitive and performance science to conservatory students. The findings from our study suggest that the module helped students practice more efficiently, tackle challenges during practice sessions, approach practice more analytically, discover mind-body connections, and perform more confidently. Further, the module fostered a sense of community among the students. The successes of this module provide a strong case for the benefits of incorporating cognitive science into the curriculum of higher music education.}, keywords = {cognitive science, ISME conference, music education}, author = {Kat R Agres and Natasha Ureyang} } @conference {2020, title = {The impact of Audio input representations on neural network based music transcription}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)}, year = {2020}, month = {07/2020}, address = {Glasgow}, abstract = {This paper thoroughly analyses the effect of different input representations on polyphonic multi-instrument music transcription. We use our own GPU based spectrogram extraction tool, nnAudio, to investigate the influence of using a linear-frequency spectrogram, log-frequency spectrogram, Mel spectrogram, and constant-Q transform (CQT). Our results show that a 8.33\% increase in transcription accuracy and a 9.39\% reduction in error can be obtained by choosing the appropriate input representation (log-frequency spectrogram with STFT window length 4,096 and 2,048 frequency bins in the spectrogram) without changing the neural network design (single layer fully connected). Our experiments also show that Mel spectrogram is a compact representation for which we can reduce the number of frequency bins to only 512 while still keeping a relatively high music transcription accuracy.}, url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.09989}, author = {K.W. Cheuk and K. Agres and D. Herremans} } @inbook {2019, title = {The impact of musical structure on enjoyment and absorptive listening states in trance music}, booktitle = {Music and Consciousness 2: Worlds, Practices, Modalities}, volume = {Edited by Ruth Herbert, David Clarke, and Eric Clarke}, year = {2019}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, organization = {Oxford University Press}, chapter = {14}, address = {Oxford}, keywords = {complexity, consciousness, enjoyment, Information theory, music structure, trance music}, issn = {ISBN: 9780198804352}, url = {https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=DCOQDwAAQBAJ\&pg=PA254\&lpg=PA254\&dq=The+impact+of+musical+structure+on+enjoyment+and+absorptive+listening+states+in+trance+music\&source=bl\&ots=FsWlNXsys-\&sig=ACfU3U0K6dFJD7zbC917zG6HRFXLxVSdvQ\&hl=en\&sa=X\&ved=2ahUKEwjd05}, author = {Kat Agres and Louis Bigo and Dorien Herremans} } @article {2017, title = {Information-Theoretic Properties of Auditory Sequences Dynamically Influence Expectation and Memory}, journal = {Cognitive Science}, volume = {42}, year = {2018}, month = {01/2018}, pages = {43-76}, abstract = {A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different types of statistical information affect listeners{\textquoteright} memory for auditory stimuli. We used a combination of behavioral and computational methods to investigate memory for non-linguistic auditory sequences. Participants repeatedly heard tone sequences varying systematically in their information-theoretic properties. Expectedness ratings of tones were collected during three listening sessions, and a recognition memory test was given after each session. Information-theoretic measures of sequential predictability significantly influenced listeners{\textquoteright} expectedness ratings, and variations in these properties had a significant impact on memory performance. Predictable sequences yielded increasingly better memory performance with increasing exposure. Computational simulations using a probabilistic model of auditory expectation suggest that listeners dynamically formed a new, and increasingly accurate, implicit cognitive model of the information-theoretic structure of the sequences throughout the experimental session.}, keywords = {Auditory perception, computational modeling, Expectation, Information theory, music cognition, Predictive coding, Recognition memory}, issn = {1551-6709}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12477}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12477}, author = {Agres, Kat and Abdallah, Samer and Pearce, Marcus} } @proceedings {2017, title = {Intelligibility of Sung Lyrics: A Pilot Study}, year = {2017}, address = {Suzhou, China}, author = {Karim Ibrahim and David Grunberg and Kat Agres and Chitra Gupta and Ye Wang} } @proceedings {2016, title = {The Information Dynamics of Thinking: a cognitive architecture for human creative cognition}, year = {2016}, month = {2016}, abstract = {We present IDyOT (Wiggins, 2012b), the Information Dynamics of Thinking, a novel cognitive architecture that instantiates the (much more abstract) Global Workspace Theory of Baars (1988), in a way motivated by a principle of efficiency in information processing. IDyOT simulates a hypothetical fundamental perceptual/cognitive loop, explicating bottom-up learning of concepts, the hierarchical structure in them, and the correlations between them from percepts. Even though the proposal is basically cognitive, embodiment is not ruled out, and the tight connection between perception and cognition potentially affords a future extension of the account to an embodied view.}, author = {Wiggins, Geraint A and Agres, Kat and Forth, Jamie and Purver, Matt} } @conference {29, title = {An information-theoretic account of musical expectation and memory}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, year = {2013}, author = {Agres, Kat and Abdallah, Samer and Pearce, Marcus} }