Matthew Moore

About me

I’m currently a PhD student in Molly Henry’s research group ‘Neural and Environmental Rhythms’ at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. I’m interested in all things related to music and timing, particularly the hazy world of polyrhythm perception and production. Originally from Devon, England; I previously studied music at Durham (MA) and City, University of London (BMus).

Research

My main research topic involves metrically ambiguous rhythms. These are rhythms where listeners may have conflicting perceptions of the position and duration of the beat, and may even be able to consciously flip between several beat interpretations (in this sense, it can be considered a rhythmic equivalent to the Necker cube or similar bistable percepts). This bistable property makes such rhythms highly valuable for studying beat perception, since they can elicit multiple behavioural and neural responses from a single controlled stimulus. After generating a set of empirically validated ambiguous rhythms, the next stage of my research will be to develop a reliable method to induce perceptual switching between metrical interpretations, and finally to measure brain activity pre- and post-switching.

  • Beat and rhythm perception
  • Polyrhythm
  • Bistable perception
  • Musical entrainment
  • Neural oscillations

Methods

  • Behavioural measures
  • R, Matlab (Psychtoolbox), Python (PsychoPy, PyTorch), JavaScript (JsPsych)
  • JATOS, Prolific, Qualtrics, LimeSurvey

Qualifications and Professional Experience

  • 2019 – present: PhD candidate at Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (Frankfurt, Germany) & Maastricht University (Maastricht, the Netherlands) supervised by Sonja Kotz and Molly Henry
  • 2018 – 2019: MA in Music at Durham University (Durham, United Kingdom) supervised by Kelly Jakubowski
  • 2015 – 2016: Study abroad year at The University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia)
  • 2014 – 2017: BMus in Music at City, University of London (London, United Kingdom)

For more details, please send an email to matthew.moore@ae.mpg.de