Art & Science in the Choral Rehearsal

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon J. Paul
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Score Study ◽  
Choral Conductors ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Choral Rehearsal ◽  
Writing Exercises ◽  
The Brain

In recent decades, cognitive neuroscience research has increased our understanding of how the brain learns, retains, and recalls information. At the same time, social psychology researchers have developed insights into group dynamics, exploring what motivates individuals in a group to give their full effort, or conversely, what might instead inspire them to become freeloaders. This book explores the idea that choral conductors who better understand how the brain learns, and how individuals within groups function, can lead more efficient, productive, and enjoyable rehearsals. Armed with this knowledge, conductors can create rehearsal techniques which take advantage of certain fundamental brain and social psychology principles. Through such approaches, singers will become increasingly engaged physically and mentally in the rehearsal process. This book draws from a range of scientific studies to suggest and encourage effective, evidence-based techniques, and can help serve to reset and inspire new approaches toward teaching. Each chapter outlines exercises and creative ideas for conductors and music teachers, including the importance of embedding problem solving into rehearsal, the use of multiple entry points for newly acquired information, techniques to encourage an emotional connection to the music, and ways to incorporate writing exercises into rehearsal. Additional topics include brain-compatible teaching strategies to complement thorough score study, the science behind motivation, the role imagination plays in teaching, the psychology of rehearsal, and conducting tips and advice. All of these brain-friendly strategies serve to encourage singers’ active participation in rehearsals, with the goal of motivating beautiful, inspired, and memorable performances.

Social Psychology and Noninvasive Electrical Stimulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo S. Boggio ◽  
Gabriel G. Rêgo ◽  
Lucas M. Marques ◽  
Thiago L. Costa
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Social Pain ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Correlational Research ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Social Decision Making ◽  
Brain Behavior

Abstract. Social neuroscience and psychology have made substantial advances in the last few decades. Nonetheless, the field has relied mostly on behavioral, imaging, and other correlational research methods. Here we argue that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an effective and relevant technique to be used in this field of research, allowing for the establishment of more causal brain-behavior relationships than can be achieved with most of the techniques used in this field. We review relevant brain stimulation-aided research in the fields of social pain, social interaction, prejudice, and social decision-making, with a special focus on tDCS. Despite the fact that the use of tDCS in Social Neuroscience and Psychology studies is still in its early days, results are promising. As better understanding of the processes behind social cognition becomes increasingly necessary due to political, clinical, and even philosophical demands, the fact that tDCS is arguably rare in Social Neuroscience research is very noteworthy. This review aims at inspiring researchers to employ tDCS in the investigation of issues within Social Neuroscience. We present substantial evidence that tDCS is indeed an appropriate tool for this purpose.

Priors and Prejudice: How prior knowledge shapes intergroup perception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh McGovern ◽  
Marte Otten
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Intergroup Perception ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Processing Framework

Bayesian processing has become a popular framework by which to understand cognitive processes. However, relatively little has been done to understand how Bayesian processing in the brain can be applied to understanding intergroup cognition. We assess how categorization and evaluation processes unfold based on priors about the ethnic outgroup being perceived. We then consider how the precision of prior knowledge about groups differentially influence perception depending on how the information about that group was learned affects the way in which it is recalled. Finally, we evaluate the mechanisms of how humans learn information about other ethnic groups and assess how the method of learning influences future intergroup perception. We suggest that a predictive processing framework for assessing prejudice could help accounting for seemingly disparate findings on intergroup bias from social neuroscience, social psychology, and evolutionary psychology. Such an integration has important implications for future research on prejudice at the interpersonal, intergroup, and societal levels.

Krešimir Krnjević (1927–2021) and GABAergic inhibition: a lifetime dedication

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Yehezkel Ben-Ari ◽  
Enrico Cherubini ◽  
Massimo Avoli
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Journal ◽  
Chief Editor ◽  
Aminobutyric Acid ◽  
Gabaergic Inhibition ◽  
Inhibitory Neurotransmitter ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Personal Interactions ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Made In

After over seven decades of neuroscience research, it is now well established that γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. In this paper dedicated to Krešimir Krnjević (1927–2021), a pioneer and leader in neuroscience, we briefly highlight the fundamental contributions he made in identifying GABA as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain and our personal interactions with him. Of note, between 1972 and 1978 Dr. Krnjević was a highly reputed Chief Editor of the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology.

Vocal Pedagogy in the Choral Rehearsal

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane Cottrell
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Vocal Pedagogy ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Vocal Production ◽  
Vocal Technique ◽  
Choral Conductors ◽  
Choral Singing ◽  
Choral Rehearsal ◽  
Choral Tone ◽  
The Individual

One of the primary endeavors of choral conductors is the facilitation of good choral tone, which is largely dependent upon the vocal technique of the individual singers. This chapter examines principles of historical vocal pedagogy, discussing their correlation with modern scientific research, and present suggestions for practical implementation of specific techniques in choral rehearsals. The chapter discusses four primary areas of vocal pedagogy in choral rehearsals: first, the significance of laryngeal position in choral singing; second, principles of resonance in singing and their impact on the choral sound; third, a discussion of breath support in choral singing; and fourth, principles of phonation and vocal production for singers in a choral setting. Each of these four discussions contain practical suggestions for the application of specific practices and exercises that will strengthen the vocal technique of choral singers.

Social clumsiness

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
Mark Selikowitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Behaviour Modification ◽  
Children With Adhd ◽  
Social Difficulties ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Social Competence Deficits ◽  
Social Prediction ◽  
The Brain

To acquire age-appropriate social skills, certain parts of the brain need to develop normally. Children with ADHD may experience social difficulties and experience what is called a social cognition deficit. This chapter outlines social clumsiness in ADHD. It discusses social cognition as a function of the brain, specific social competence deficits (social blindness, egocentricity, lack of appropriate inhibition, insatiability, insensitivity to style and convention, lack of responsiveness, over-talkativeness, difficulties reading facial expression, aggressive tendencies, lack of judgment, poor understanding of group dynamics, misinterpretation of feedback, poor social prediction, poor social memory, lack of awareness of image, poor behaviour-modification strategies), management of social clumsiness, and autism spectrum disorder.

A Science So-Called

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-55
Author(s):  
Megan Faragher
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Inherent Difficulty ◽  
Group Psychology ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
The University ◽  
The Universe

H.G. Wells’s life extends the radical evolution of psychographics outlined in the Introduction, but his oeuvre also proves the inherent difficulty in aestheticizing the emergent age of social psychology—a point evinced when producer Alexander Korda demanded Wells revise the script version of his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come three times to make it “filmable.” While Wells’s novel imagines a peaceable future wherein social psychology becomes the “whole literature, philosophy, and general thought of the world,” the film adaptation instead symbolizes this philosophical transformation by starring a sole philosopher-king who, against the people’s will, seeks to control and colonize the universe. This chapter argues that the conflict between these two Wellsian visions is prefigured by his intimate and conflicted relationship to sociology and group psychology. As early as 1906, Wells sought out the position as the first British chair of sociology at the University of London. But Wells was immediately to become a gadfly in academia: he engaged in scathing critiques of sociology for denying its utopian impulses and refuted theories of group dynamics put forward by Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter. Incorporating readings across Wells’s literary career—including Anticipations, An Englishman Looks at the World, and In the Days of the Comet—this chapter contends that Wells’s writing captures a life-long effort to reprise the scope of sociology from outside academia, and captures the writer’s foundering efforts to aestheticize the institutional promise of social psychology—efforts that inevitably succumb to Wells’s fetishization of pseudo-authoritarian technocracy.

scholarly journals From likely to likable: The role of statistical typicality in human social assessment of faces

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (47) ◽  
pp. 29371-29380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaitanya K. Ryali ◽  
Stanny Goffin ◽  
Piotr Winkielman ◽  
Angela J. Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Theoretical Result ◽  
Face Image ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Efficient Coding ◽  
Typical Data ◽  
Log Likelihood ◽  
The Brain

Humans readily form social impressions, such as attractiveness and trustworthiness, from a stranger’s facial features. Understanding the provenance of these impressions has clear scientific importance and societal implications. Motivated by the efficient coding hypothesis of brain representation, as well as Claude Shannon’s theoretical result that maximally efficient representational systems assign shorter codes to statistically more typical data (quantified as log likelihood), we suggest that social “liking” of faces increases with statistical typicality. Combining human behavioral data and computational modeling, we show that perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, and valence of a face image linearly increase with its statistical typicality (log likelihood). We also show that statistical typicality can at least partially explain the role of symmetry in attractiveness perception. Additionally, by assuming that the brain focuses on a task-relevant subset of facial features and assessing log likelihood of a face using those features, our model can explain the “ugliness-in-averageness” effect found in social psychology, whereby otherwise attractive, intercategory faces diminish in attractiveness during a categorization task.

scholarly journals Simple Answers and Quick Fixes: Dyslexia and the Brain on the Internet

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 314-333
Author(s):  
Jo Worthy ◽  
Vickie Godfrey ◽  
Susan Tily ◽  
Anne Daly-Lesch ◽  
Cori Salmerón
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Learning ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
The Brain

After well over a century of research about dyslexia, there is still no consensus about how it differs from other decoding difficulties, how it is identified, and its causes. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of research about dyslexia, mostly conducted outside of education, and much of it focused on the brain. This attention to the brain and dyslexia is also reflected on the Internet. In the study reported here, we analyzed information on the Internet focusing on dyslexia and the brain, grounding our examination in varying perspectives about the connections between neuroscience and education. We found that many of the sites include distortions, simplifications, and misinterpretations of neuroscience research, and some sites used this misinformation to bolster claims for the efficacy of the so-called brain-based interventions. We suggest that educators who become familiar with the limitations and affordances of neuroscience research, while maintaining a focus on the broad range of factors that influence literacy learning, can help to moderate the spread of misinformation.

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