Lauren Fink is an Asst. Professor in the Dept. of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, and a member of the McMaster Institute for Music & the Mind. Having progressed from a music conservatory degree (BM) in Percussion Performance to a PhD in Neuroscience, most of Lauren's research centres around timing. From using computational models to predict listeners' attention to music over time, to building assistive devices to help people tap together in time, Lauren is interested in understanding the physiological, psychological, and interpersonal changes induced through engaging with music.
Lauren conceives of music as multi-modal (auditory, visual, tactile, motor, etc.), often incorporating methods like eye-tracking into her research. Twice, Lauren has co-chaired a scientific Conference on Music & Eye-Tracking, in addition to organising a special issue in the Journal of Eye Movement Research on the same topic. Lauren's lab at McMaster focusses on multi-modal interactions and computational modelling of multi-modal saliency over time. It is equipped with real-time embedded single board computers for adaptive music making scenarios, mobile eye-trackers for measuring ocular behaviour of multiple people interacting simultaneously, and state-of-the-art computing equipment. With a department full of world-renowned colleagues and facilities like the LIVELab, McMaster is the ideal home for Lauren's research.
