Ilana Harris talk on Sound and touch: how and when are they linked?

Sound and touch: how and when are they linked?

Intuitively, sound and touch perception sometimes seem to be overlapping. Some of us might feel a prickle on our scalps and shoulders when hearing the screech of nails across a dry chalkboard; others might be musicians or composers who use sound-touch metaphors to describe the ‘texture’ of sounds. The first part of my presentation will focus on theory: In the brain, there are anatomical and functional links between auditory & somatosensory processing regions. I will summarize what makes caudal auditory cortex, a noteworthy region of sound-touch overlap, special, and why it is interesting to study in the context of sound-evoked touch. I will also discuss evidence from neuroimaging studies of sound-evoked touch including sound-touch synesthesia and musical chills. The second part of my presentation will focus on practice: I will talk step-by-step through an fMRI experiment where we scanned people while they listened to pleasant (ASMR) sounds and unpleasant (misophonic) sounds with varied amounts of spatial information (original binaural recordings vs. diotic mixdowns). My aim here is to give an example of how one might do an fMRI study from ‘start’ to ‘finish’ with the aim of making this super transparent & informative for students. I will close by discussing intended implications of my research, and offer some tips to students who are planning to do a PhD.

Ilana Harris is a Canadian-American who is doing her PhD (‘a machine for self-actualizers’) at UCL under the supervision of Sophie Scott, Marcus Pearce, and Fred Dick. Ilana is studying how aesthetic auditory phenomena like ASMR and music can help shed light on auditory processing in the brain. In addition to doing science Ilana loves many kinds of music—both as listener and as a performer :) Ilana has an interdisciplinary academic background (B.A. in Music Cognition & Perception from Harvard; Masters in Cognitive Science from FU Berlin and in Musicology from Cambridge) and is a big advocate for interdisciplinary research and education.

The MMB & PANC Speaker Series 2025–26 in Psychology is a joint event between the MSc Music, Mind and Brain (MMB) and MSc Psychology of Aesthetics, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity (PANC) at Goldsmiths, University of London. The series brings together world-leading researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of psychology, aesthetics, music, creativity, and the arts.

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