How can music cognition research help create better medical alarms -- and better patient outcomes? Researcher Michael Schutz explains his work in this TEDxMcMaster talk.
By Sara Laux, Faculty of Humanities March 24, 2021
Professor
Medical alarms have appeared on the Emergency Care Research Institute’s list of top medical hazards four times — twice in the number one spot. According to a recent FDA survey, bad sound design for medical devices accounted for 566 deaths over four years, mostly because the sounds can be so annoying that they get turned down so doctors and nurses can concentrate, leading to potentially deadly consequences.
In this TEDx McMaster talk from February 2021, Michael Schutz, an associate professor of music cognition and percussion, explains how his research with the Music Acoustics Perception Learning (MAPLE) lab is helping to create better alarms — and better patient outcomes.
Read the papers related to this research