PUBLIC CONFERENCES / EXHIBITIONS

 

You can see or review the conference entitled "the secrets of the glass harmonica" given by Sébastien Ollivier, lecturer at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and member of the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics (LMFA/LabEx CeLyA) and Nicolas Grimault CNRS research director and member of the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (CRNL/LabEx CeLyA) with the complicity of Thomas Bloch, musician (glass armonica) which was held on March 16, 2022 at the Musée des Confluences as part of the brain week on the links below :

watch the conference here
 

 

Thanks to a work of reconstitution of vocalizations, David Reby, teacher-researcher at the UJM and researcher in ethology at the ENES / CRNL has restored the voice to three species of extinct animals: the megaceros, the woolly rhino and the cave bear. Inspired by the researcher's work on animal voice communication, these reconstructions will allow the general public to hear these animals that have been extinct for millennia in an exhibition at the Musée de Préhistoire de Solutré which ran from 14 October 2020 to 31 August 2021.

Reconstructions of the cries of three extinct animal species

To reconstruct the vocalizations of the Megaceros, a prehistoric deer of very impressive size, David Reby has chosen to modify deer calls, whose appearance and biology are similar to those of the Megaceros (in both species the antlers are webbed and the males are larger than the females (strong sexual dimorphism). Since the Megaceros is much larger than the fallow deer, the researcher lowered the timbre and pitch of the voice by 30%, simulating a disproportionate neck, and long and thick vocal cords, characteristic of species with strong sexual dimorphism, in which the vocal cords lengthen and thicken under the effect of testosterone. In addition, the duration of the cry was lengthened because the animal's greater lung capacity would have enabled it to maintain its cry over a longer period of time.

To simulate the cave bear, the researcher recorded the sounds of a female grizzly bear, named Julia, in Orleans bear trainers approved by the French Association for the Protection of Working Animals. The size of the cave bear being comparable to that of grizzly bears, the frequencies of the cry were not modified. The recording was cleaned to suppress parasitic noise, then broadcast and re-recorded in the Limousis Cave (Aude), in the "salle des colonnes", whose acoustics were perfect, and whose walls bear traces of cave bear claws, at least 16,000 years old. David Reby chose to slightly saturate the recording in order to increase the apparent aggressiveness of the animal, which can be imagined at the entrance of his cave to defend its territory.

Finally, for the woolly rhinoceros, David Reby worked from a recording of rhinos, which he lowered the frequencies and duration to imitate a slightly larger animal, before mixing it with a background sound recorded in Scotland.

Although it is impossible to reconstitute the cries of the extinct animals identically - the vocalizations leave no traces - these methods informed by our scientific knowledge allow us to recreate simulations that are as realistic as possible.

November 14, 2019 Great Amphitheatre of the UDL

View the conference : here

Presented by Nicolas Mathevon - Professor at the University of Lyon-Saint-Étienne, member of the Institut universitaire de France, biologist of animal behaviour - Sensory Neuro-Ethology Team, CNRS, Labex CeLyA (Centre Lyonnais d'Acoustique)

 

and Elisa Demuru – Post doctoral student - Dynamics of Language Laboratory, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2,
Labex ASLAN (Complex Dynamic Language Systems) Laboratoire Dynamique Du Langage, CNRS Université Lumière Lyon 2,
and Team of Sensory Neuroethology, CNRS, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne

At the end of the conference, Elisa Demuru was awarded the 2019 Foreign Post Doctoral Prize from the University of Lyon.

 

Presentation :

"The crocodile wanders, the cricket cracks, the hyena laughs, the tit zinzinule...
Many animals communicate through sounds, but what do they say to each other? Through recordings and experiments in some of the most remote places on our planet, bioacoustic researchers are exploring the sound signals of animals. During his lecture, Nicolas Mathevon exposed the diversity of these worlds, from the cries of small crocodiles to those of human babies, to the sound jousting of elephant seals. He analyzed the information conveyed by animal vocalizations and highlighted the complexity of their communication, providing an unprecedented insight into the origin of our own language."

Elisa Demuru presented her research aimed at exploring the effects of social experience in the first years of life on communication in the bonobo (Pan paniscus) by studying gestures, facial expressions and vocalizations emitted during playful interactions. Indeed, the acquisition of social, emotional and mental skills depends on a combination of physical and social factors that must be present in the early years of life. In humans and other primates, play is the main context in which young people must manage social relationships and can be used to reveal deficiencies caused by disrupted social development.

April 3, 2019 - Confluence Museum
Conference as part of the 80th anniversary of the CNRS.

Organizers: Musée des Confluences, CNRS, CRNL

Barbara Tillmann's lecture
(CNRS, Centre de recherche en neurosciences de Lyon)

How does the brain perceive music? How can music stimulate the brain?
Barbara Tillmann's work focuses on decoding the cognitive and neural mechanisms that enable the human brain to perceive musical structures.

see the video here
 

March 25, 2019 - Jean Monnet University

During a conference: the researchers of the ENES team (UJM /Neuro-PSI-CNRS/Paris-Sud) will share with you their discoveries on animal communication and bioacoustics: the language of the great apes, counting the snow partridge using acoustic tools, the sound fights of sea elephants...

The crocodile wanders, the cricket cracks, the hyena laughs, the zinzinule tit... many animals communicate by sounds, but what do they say to each other? Through recordings and experiments, sometimes conducted in some of the most remote places on our planet, researchers at the ENES laboratory explore the sound signals of wild animals. By analyzing the information conveyed by these vocalizations, ENES research highlights the complexity of animal acoustic communications, and provides new insights into the origin of our own language. During this afternoon's conference, the public will be able to explore the diversity of these sound worlds, from fish to bonobos, crocodiles, birds, elephant seals....

Speakers :
Marilyn BEAUCHAUD, Senior Lecturer
Florence LEVRERO, Senior Lecturer
Nicolas MATHEVON, Professor, Senior Member of the Institut universitaire de France
Vincent MEDOC, Senior Lecturer
David REBY, Professor

October 06, 2018

This conference will be given on October 6, as part of the 2018 Science Festival at bibliothèque du 5ème arrondissement de Lyon, it will be presented by Nicolas Grimault, Acoustician, CNRS researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, Auditive Cognition and Psychoacoustics team.

Psychoacoustics is interested in the perceptual mechanisms of hearing. Far from allowing an accurate recording of our sound environment, our auditory system is a complex system that inherits physiological constraints but benefits from a set of cognitive mechanisms that allow it to interpret the auditory scenes with which it is confronted and thus perceive complex sound landscapes. This ability to interpret makes it a system with extreme performance that no other algorithm has ever been able to match.
This presentation will summarize what we know about how this system works and will illustrate with audiovisual examples the sensory mechanisms of auditory scene analysis. A set of auditory illusions will also allow listeners to penetrate the functioning of this complex system and understand the role of knowledge in perception.

March 1 and 2, 2018

Two afternoons of lectures on brass instruments are organized, in partnership with the CNSMD of Lyon, LabEx CeLyA, the Lyon 1 Open University and the GSAM/SFA*, with two presentations by CNRS researchers specializing in the physics of these instruments (* GSAM/SFA Groupe Spécialisé en Acoustique Musicale de la Société Française d'Acoustique)

Coordination : Sébastien Ollivier (Université Lyon 1)
& Maxime Marchand (département de culture musicale du CNSMDL)
A concert of brass ensembles from the CNSMD of Lyon will conclude these days.
Summary of the conferences by the scientists (Christophe Vergez LMA & Joël Gilbert LAUM, DR CNRS)

Thursday, March 1st, 2pm:  "Introduction to brass acoustics, from physics to music "
The production of sound by brass will be presented through recent research results in musical acoustics. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role played by the musician. Through a back and forth between physics and music, several characteristics of brass playing will be explored. The presentation does not require any special prerequisites
Friday, March 2nd, 4pm : « Brass acoustics, from carnyx to modern brass »
The conference will provide an opportunity to discover the intimate workings of wind instruments, and more particularly those of the brass family. This "physicist's point of view" will be illustrated with numerous demonstrations recorded or carried out live. The conference is aimed at a wide audience, musicians and music lovers, and does not require any special prerequisites.
The Conferences and the concert are free of charge.
The programme and venue can be consulted on the website of the CNSMD of Lyon: here

 

Lecture by Barbara Tillmann at the Spring Conferences of the University of Lille March 2018

Research on musical perception shows that even non-musician listeners become sensitive to the regularities of the musical system by simply exposing themselves to musical pieces in everyday life. This musical knowledge is very elaborate; it influences the perception of sounds and allows the understanding of musical structures. On the other hand, for some people, music makes no sense: they are unable to recognize a familiar song without words as well as to detect a wrong note or when someone sings wrong (including themselves). These people have "congenital amusement", a musical deficit without other cognitive or auditory deficits.
Studying how the brain treats music (in its normal and deficit functioning) has become the focus of a growing body of research that, together with research studying language perception, contributes to our understanding of how the brain works.
Barbara Tillmann is a research director at the CNRS and leads the "auditory cognition and psychoacoustic cognition" team at the Lyon neuroscience research centre. After completing her thesis at the University of Burgundy, she went on a post doctoral internship in the United States before returning to Lyon. She is committed to deciphering the cognitive and neural mechanisms that allow the human brain to perceive music. She is particularly interested in the phenomena of congenital amusement, which affect about 4% of the population. It has also helped to reveal the beneficial role of music in the treatment of certain cognitive disorders (dyslexia, dysphasia). She has participated in more than 120 publications in international journals of the highest level such as Nature, Journal of Neuroscience, Neuropsychology. She is the author of a book and has written chapters in 21 widely distributed books. Remarkably, she won the bronze and silver medals from the CNRS in 2004 and 2016 respectively. She collaborates with many laboratories and in particular with the University of Sydney where she is very involved in research themes and teaching.
to be continued here