Dr. Lauren Fink

Research Focus
Using physiological data (e.g. eye-tracking, EEG) to:
- predict listeners’ subjective evaluation or experience of music
- inform computational models of temporal attention, salience, and entrainment
- decode what someone is listening to
Vita
Education
2014–2019 | PhD in Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, (USA) |
2013–2014 | M.Phil in Music Studies, University of Cambridge (UK) |
2009–2013 | BM in Percussion Performance, summa cum laude, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (USA) |
Career
Since 2023 | Guest Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
2020–2022 | Post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
Publications
Publications
Czepiel, A., Fink, L., Seibert, C., Scharinger, M., Kotz, S. (2022, submitted). Aesthetic and physiological effects of naturalistic multimodal music listening. Preprint on BioRxiv: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.02.498390v1
Fink, L., Durojaye, C., Roeske, T., Wald-Fuhrmann, M., & Larrouy-Maestri, P. (2022). The dùndún drum helps us understand how we process speech and music. Frontiers for Young Minds, section Neuroscience and Psychology.
Wittstock, S., Sperber, L., Kirk, G., McCarty, K., de Sola-Smith, K., Wade, J., Simon, M., Fink, L. (2022). Making what we know explicit: Perspectives from graduate writing consultants on supporting graduate writers. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 19(2). https://www.praxisuwc.com/192-wittstock-et-al.
Fink, L. & Simola, J., Tavano, A., Wallot, S., & Laeng, B. (in revision). From pre-processing to dynamic modeling of pupil data. Preprint on PsyArXiv: https://psyarxiv.com/wqvue
Saxena, S., Lange, E. B., & Fink, L. (2022). Towards efficient calibration for webcam eye-tracking in online experiments. In Proceedings ETRA 2022: ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 1-7). doi:10.1145/3517031.3529645.
Fink, L. K., Alexander, P. C., & Janata, P. (2022). The Groove Enhancement Machine (GEM): A Multi-Person Adaptive Metronome to Manipulate Sensorimotor Synchronization and Subjective Enjoyment. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.916551
Tavano, A., Blohm, S., Knoop, C.A., Muralikrishnan, R., Fink, L., Scharinger, M., Wagner, V., Thiele, D., Ghitza, O., Ding, N., Menninghaus, W., Poeppel, D. (2021, in revision). Neural harmonics of syntactic structure. Preprint on BioRxiv: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.031575v3.
Durojaye, C., Fink, L., Roeske, T. C., Wald-Fuhrmann, M., & Larrouy-Maestri, P. (2021). Perception of Nigerian Dùndún talking drum performances as speech-like vs. music-like: The role of familiarity and acoustic cues. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 652673. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652673.
Fink, L. (2021). Computational models of temporal expectations. Proceedings of the Future Directions of Music Cognition International Conference, pp. 208-213. https://doi.org/10.18061/FDMC.2021.0041.
Czepiel, A., Fink, L. K., Fink, L. T., Wald-Fuhrmann, M., Tröndle, M., & Merrill, J. (2021). Synchrony in the periphery: inter-subject correlation of physiological responses during live music concerts. Scientific Reports, 11: 22457. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-00492-3.
Fink, L., Warrenburg, L., Howlin, C., Randall, W., Hansen, N., & Wald-Fuhrmann, M. (2021). Viral tunes: Changes in musical behaviours and interest in coronamusic predict socio-emotional coping during COVID-19 lockdown. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8: 180. doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00858-y.
Sharma, N., Krishnamohan, V., Ganapathy, S., Gangopadhayay, A. & Fink, L. (2020). Acoustic and linguistic features influence talker change detection. J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. Express Letters 147(5). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0002462.
Fink, L., Lange, E., & Groner, R. (2019). The application of eye-tracking in music research. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 11(2): 1. DOI: 10.16910 / jemr.11.2.1
Fink, L., Hurley, B., Geng, J. & Janata, P. (2018). A linear oscillator model predicts dynamic temporal attention and pupillary entrainment to rhythmic musical patterns. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 11(2):12. DOI: 10.16910/jemr.11.2.12
Hurley, B., Fink, L., & Janata, P. (2018). Mapping the dynamic allocation of attention in musical patterns. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 44(11), 1694-1711. DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000563
Fink, L. (2017). Chance operations in neuroscience. In Lane, J. and L. Fink (Eds.), Allen Otte Folio, pp. 17-20.
Fink, L. (2016). The Greatest. Pulse Special Issue of Ethnomusicology Review/Sounding Board.
Awards & Grants
Awards and Scholarships
2017–2019 | ARCS Foundation Achievement Research Award for College Scientists |
2017 | UC Davis & Humanities Graduate Research Award |
2017 | UC Davis Diversity Inclusion and Innovation Grant. “SOMA: Seminar Outreach for Minority Advocacy.” PI: Lauren Fink |
2016 | Ling-Lie Chau Student Award for Brain Research |
2016 | University of California Music Experience Research Community Initiative: Research Exchange Grant – Univ. California, San Diego |
2014–2015 | Neuroscience Graduate Group Fellowship, Univ. California, Davis |
2013–2014 | Cambridge Overseas Trust, Wolfson Cambridge Scholarship, Univ. Cambridge |
2013 | Marshall Scholarship Finalist, Univ. of Cincinnati |
Projects
- Aesthetic Absorption
„…then the musical work of art draws us into itself and carries us along with it “ ...
- Concert Research
Especially in cuturally Western regions of the world, the concert is a very important and influential social context of music listening. It is closely intertwined with the development of instrumental music and the notion of musical autonomy and ...
- Musicovid – An International Research Network
News and Events | Ongoing Studies and Surveys |
- Music and Eye-Tracking
Tracking gaze, pupil, and blinking is important to understand attentional processes in the visual domain. For example, it has long been shown that visual-spatial attention is strongly coupled with gaze (but can be de-coupled in the case of covert ...