MTS is the department’s Mind, Technology, and Society speaker series. It is hosted by a different faculty member each semester. Founded by a generous gift from Professors Robert Glushko and Pamela Samuelson, MTS brings researchers and industry professionals from across the globe to present a variety of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science. See our UCMerced CogSci youtube channel for videos of past MTS talks!
CIS graduate students, faculty, and staff, and all who are interested are invited! Members of other departments at UC Merced as well as the general public are encouraged to attend. (Note: current CIS Ph.D. students are required to attend MTS each semester in residence, to fulfill their COGS 250 course requirement).
Dr. Hove's talk "Groove and Trance: Musical Rhythm to Move the Body and Alter Consciousness" will be 3-4:30pm in COB 116.
Abstract: Repetitive rhythmic sound can induce movement and altered states of consciousness. In the first part of this talk, I’ll discuss musical features that drive body movement, highlighting studies linking movement to bass and the underlying mechanisms, including auditory and vibrotactile encoding. I’ll present applications of bass for boosting social connection and reducing hearing loss. The second part focuses on repetitive drumming as a tool for inducing trance. Trance is central to shamanism, humanity’s oldest spiritual and healing tradition. fMRI and EEG studies of experienced shamanic practitioners show that rhythmic trance involves brain-network reconfiguration consistent with perceptual decoupling, with the drum sounds largely gated out to sustain an internally oriented stream of consciousness. These findings help explain the widespread use of drumming to alter consciousness and why trance facilitates insight across cultures. I conclude by discussing my role at a teaching-focused public university and my interests in teaching, service, and open-education resources.
Bio: Michael Hove is a Professor of Psychology at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. He received a PhD in Psychology from Cornell University and held previous research positions at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, McMaster’s Institute for Music & the Mind, Harvard Medical School, and was a Fulbright Research Chair at McGill University. Dr. Hove’s research uses behavioral, physiological, and cognitive-neuroscience tools to investigate rhythm and timing. His work has examined the neural underpinnings and musical attributes of musical groove, how people move along with the beat, and how rhythmic movement can increase social connection and induce altered states of consciousness. His work appears in journals including Current Biology, Music Perception, NeuroImage, Cerebral Cortex, and PNAS.
For more information or to sign up for email announcements, please contact the talk series organizer: cis-mts-lead@lists.ucmerced.edu.
