VART3510 - AkE Internship Journal Week 6 :: Further refinement & CHEAN

Darrin has advised me of the College Human Ethics Advisory Network [CHEAN] and the process required to authorise research involving participants. He has advised me to outline any potential risk factors of the test design.

I've made note of the following considerations for our application to CHEAN:

*Volume - Decibel level /SPL using Earbuds 

We can control for this using a suitable volume

*Dry electrode sensor considerations 

Participants need to informed that they can not have any cuts or abrasions in sensor area, jewellery, metal plates in skull, electrical oversensitivity, pacemakers.

*Psychological issues 

Controllable, we will require that participants cannot undertake the research if psychological issues are present

Also, after filling out the CHEAN application form: Ethics Checklist for Negligible Risk Projects - questions 1, 2 and 8 required to be answered YES, requiring the Ethics Checklist for Low Risk Projects to be filled.

In the Ethics Checklist for Low Risk Projects I only identified one question that may prevent us from applying under the Low Risk category. Under administration of other substances or devices I ticked YES on the basis that we will be using the EEG device on our participants. Darrin is going to contact CHEAN to ascertain whether this does disqualify us from the low risk category.

We also decided to restrict the audio stimuli to two sources. We are both fans of the contemporary electronic noise musician Merzbow, we opted to compare and contrast the neural oscillatory response from a single piece by Merzbow and a single piece by Mozart. Simplifying the list of auditory stimuli to be played to the participants allows us to avoid having to tightly control the timbral, historical, dynamic elements and energy levels of the compositional stimuli. This allows for a piece by a contemporary electronic noise musician to be incorporated into the research.

This is also under the suggestion from Darrin that the most opportune pathway with research is to begin with broad strokes and follow up with detail in subsequent research - which feels much more suitable.



Refined research proposal:

Observation and recording of comparative brainwave activity changes in response to musical and noise based sonic compositions in order to examine whether a conventional musical framework is a significant component in the neural response to composed sonic stimuli. 

Participants will be played a single piece Mozart followed by a single piece by Merzbow. Responses to the stimuli will be measured via EEG over the duration of the composition after a baseline response has been recorded. Respondents will also be surveyed via questionnaire following the experience.

I have modelled our Participant Survey after a previous study that Darrin had undertaken.