Eric Boyer successfully defended his PhD thesis, “Continuous Auditory Feedback for Sensorimotor Learning”, on Mai 11th. Eric conducted his PhD in the ISMM and PDS teams and at LPP-CNRS Université Paris Descartes with Sylvain Hanneton, Patrick Susini and Frédéric Bevilacqua.
The Jury was composed by Pr. Cathy CRAIG – Queen’s University Belfast, Pr. Roberto BRESIN – KTH Royal Institute of Technology – Stockholm, Pr. Vincent HAYWARD – UPMC – Paris, Dr. Bruno GIORDANO – Center for Neuroimaging – Glasgow, Pr. Olivier GAPENNE – UTC – Compiègne, Dr. Patrick SUSINI – IRCAM, Dr. Sylvain HANNETON – Université Paris Descartes and Dr. Frédéric BEVILACQUA – IRCAM.
Abstract:
Our sensorimotor system has developed a specific relationship between our actions and their sonic outcomes, which it interprets as auditory feedback. The development of motion sensing and audio technologies allows emphasizing this relationship through interactive sonification of movement. We propose several experimental frameworks (visual, non-visual, tangible, virtual) to assess the contribution of sonification to sensorimotor control and learning in interactive systems. First, we show that the auditory system integrates dynamic auditory cues for online motor control, either from head or hand movements. Auditory representations of space and of the scene can be built from audio features and transformed into motor commands. Second, we measure that continuous auditory feedback in a tracking task helps significantly the performance. We also observe that sonification of user’s movement can increase the energy of produced motion and prevent feedback dependency. Finally, we present the concept of sound-oriented task, where the target is expressed as acoustic features to match. We show that motor adaptation can be driven by interactive audio cues only. In this work, we highlight important guidelines for sonification design in auditory-motor coupling research, as well as applications through original setups we developed, like perceptual and physical training, and playful gesture-sound interactive scenarios for rehabilitation.
defense, phd, sensorimotor learning, sonification
