The lab is central to the activities of RITMO - Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Rhythm, Time and Motion, a Norwegian Centre of Excellence. It is primarily used for studies of music-related body motion, music performance, and music psychology. The lab is also increasingly being used by external researchers, from other disciplines at UiO, from the greater Oslo area and also from other parts of the country. Research coming out of the lab has had an impact in several different disciplines, including musicology, psychology, informatics, linguistics, and physiotherapy.
The lab houses a large range of motion capture systems (both optical and inertial), different types of physiological sensing (EMG and ECG), and a setup for multichannel audio (24-channel) and video (4-channel) recording. All these systems can be combined in different ways, with frame-based synchronization, and allows for carrying out a large number of behavioural experiments. The lab also has a high-density speaker array (24-channel) that can be used for creating immersive audio experiences for other experiments, but which is also used alone in the study of multichannel audio experiences. Built as a flexible black-box, it also allows for running small concerts with an audience. This makes it possible to carry out both observation and intervention studies.
Researchers from the fourMs Lab have been at the forefront of developing software for the analysis of music-related body motion. The lab has also pushed for international standardization strategies and open research strategies, most recently through the MusicLab concept.
