Re: PhD position on goosebump music in Kiel, Germany

[Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Christian,

This announcement makes me remember an observation I made a long time ago
during one of the famous conferences on musical acustics in Ossiach. It was
during a demonstration of Reinier Plomp on combination tones.

I was sitting quite some distance from the stage. So I could clearly observe
that the location of the combination tone that I heard was different from
that of the original components. I felt that the CT was generated in my
(left) ear. The sensation was not much different from the unexpected
goosebump generating touch of someone tickling you with a hair in your neck
or ear.

I had always in mind to investigate whether the combination tones could be
an explanation of such hair raising sounds as from your nails on the
blackboard. 

I would be very glad if you could consider this hypothesis in your
exploratory work on goosebumps.

Kind regards,

Leon van Noorden

-----Original Message-----
From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception
[mailto:AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christian Kaernbach
Sent: vrijdag 2 maart 2007 18:16
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: PhD position on goosebump music in Kiel, Germany

We offer a limited PhD position (one year) with good chances for
prolongation (another two years) on the following highly topical subject:

Why does music sometimes elicit goosebumps? Why do certain sounds (chalk
on a blackboard) sometimes elicit goosebumps? How can we objectively
measure goosebumps? How can we reliably induce goosebumps? Are
goosebumps to music different from goosebumps to atrocious sounds or to
cold? What is the time course of goosebumps relatively to the stimulus,
and compared to that of skin conductance and other physiological
correlates of arousal? ... (and whatever comes to your mind once there
is a goosebump recording system available)

A more detailed description of the job offer can be found at
     http://www.psychologie.uni-kiel.de/emotion/goose/phd.pdf

We present our brand new goosebump recording system (see also:)
     http://www.psychologie.uni-kiel.de/emotion/goose/
on March 26/27 in Trier, Germany, on the TeaP conference (Experimental
Psychologists Meeting),
     http://www.teap.uni-trier.de/
but you are also welcome to visit us in Kiel to get a demonstration of
this new device.

Applications will be accepted until position is filled. We will start
interviewing candidates on April 2.

-- 
Prof. Dr. Christian Kaernbach
Allgemeine Psychologie
Institut für Psychologie
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Olshausenstr. 62
D-24098 Kiel
Germany
www.kaernbach.de