Doctor Kirk Olsen

My PhD in experimental psychology (auditory psychophysics) was awarded in September 2011 under the supervision of Professor Kate Stevens at the MARCS Institute. My doctoral thesis presents a theory of cognitive and sensory mechanisms that underpin perceived changes in loudness in response to dynamic speech and musical stimuli. My research investigates the relative influence of recency in memory, neural persistence, and sensory adaptation in response to increases and decreases of acoustic intensity. A further interest lies in the psychophysiological response to musical dynamics. I have implemented an event-related skin conductance paradigm to investigate psychophysiological arousal, valance, and loudness change in response to short, dynamic musical stimuli. The findings of my doctoral research have applications to topics from basic auditory psychophysics to affective response to increasingly complex stimulus events such as music. In the context of music perception and psychophysiology, future work will investigate interactions between dynamic acoustic attributes (e.g., intensity and frequency) using continuous response measures and time-series statistical techniques.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Olsen.