scholarly journals POLYPHONIC MUSIC AND ASPECTS OF ITS PERCEPTION

Author(s):  
Ivana Milošević

This paper presents several different studies which suggest that music in more musical voices (voice multiplicity) tends to be perceived more positively. These empirical studies emphasize the importance of horizontal organiztion on music perception. According to the author Vinoo Alluri (Alluri, 2012) the polyphonic timbre has been found to be a significant perceptual component of music, especially in studies that involve tasks such as genre identification, categorization, or emotional affect attribution.

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna K. Tirovolas ◽  
Daniel J. Levitin

in this review we sought to document the longitudinal course of empirical studies in the journal Music Perception, from the journal’s first issue in 1983 to 2010. The aim was to systematically characterize the nature of empirical research in one of the principal peer-reviewed outlets for work in our field, and to consider these data as a sample representing the overall course of research across the last three decades. Specific domains examined within each article were: Topics, Participants, Stimuli, Materials, and Outcome Measures. In total, 384 empirical articles in the journal were examined. In addition, relevant details were extracted from the full set of 578 articles regarding geographic and disciplinary (departmental) distribution of the authors. Together, the data we report allow an examination of 26-year trends in music research. These are made available in a database that is fully searchable or sortable by interested researchers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Hyun Kim

Over the last three decades, there has been an increasing number of empirical studies on how music conveys and induces emotional expressiveness, revolving around both the longstanding discourse over compositional and performance features related to recognized or felt emotions, and more recent interest in (neuro)psychological mechanisms underlying emotions induced by music. However, the question of how expressive forms of music are shaped and co-shaped within the ongoing process of music-making and music perception has received little investigation. This paper focuses on the expressive forms of music that the developmental psychologist Daniel N. Stern refers to as ‘forms of vitality’, discussing how they are (co)shaped and give rise to aesthetic experience of music. The aim is the development of a theoretical framework allowing for a new research perspective on musical expressiveness—taking into account the aesthetic experience of music—in relation to the process of (co)shaping forms of vitality in music. Further, a hypothesis for and methodologies of empirical research fitting into this theoretical framework are considered, expanding the schema beyond cognitivist and emotivist approaches to musical expressiveness.


2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Dibben

Theories of auditory event perception have highlighted a distinction between “everyday” and “musical” listening. This paper challenges this account of listening in two ways: first, it extends the notion of source specification to the specification of cultural and compositional categories, and second, it argues that listening to music involves listening to what sounds specify just as much as it involves listening to the acoustic characteristics of sounds. It is argued here that the characterisation of ‘musical’ listening as attending to the acoustic character of sound is a reflection of the prevailing reception ideology of the autonomous art work. This paper reports the results of two empirical studies which provide evidence for the perception of music in terms of categories of musical material (.i.e. what sounds specify). In the first study, participants were presented with triads of musical and everyday sounds presented in conflicting pairings and asked to identify the two that were most similar. In the second study listeners were asked to give commentaries on the sounds. These listening studies showed that while listeners pay attention to the acoustic properties of sounds they are also sensitive to what sounds specify (physical source, physical space and proximity, genre, musical function, performance skill, emotional attributes and social context). The results highlight the way in which listeners privilege particular kinds of specifications, and some of the factors involved in these choices are discussed briefly in relation to a performative theory of musical meaning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Hausfeld ◽  
Niels R. Disbergen ◽  
Giancarlo Valente ◽  
Robert J. Zatorre ◽  
Elia Formisano

Numerous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that the auditory cortex tracks ongoing speech and that, in multi-speaker environments, tracking of the attended speaker is enhanced compared to the other irrelevant speakers. In contrast to speech, multi-instrument music can be appreciated by attending not only on its individual entities (i.e., segregation) but also on multiple instruments simultaneously (i.e., integration). We investigated the neural correlates of these two modes of music listening using electroencephalography (EEG) and sound envelope tracking. To this end, we presented uniquely composed music pieces played by two instruments, a bassoon and a cello, in combination with a previously validated music auditory scene analysis behavioral paradigm (Disbergen et al., 2018). Similar to results obtained through selective listening tasks for speech, relevant instruments could be reconstructed better than irrelevant ones during the segregation task. A delay-specific analysis showed higher reconstruction for the relevant instrument during a middle-latency window for both the bassoon and cello and during a late window for the bassoon. During the integration task, we did not observe significant attentional modulation when reconstructing the overall music envelope. Subsequent analyses indicated that this null result might be due to the heterogeneous strategies listeners employ during the integration task. Overall, our results suggest that subsequent to a common processing stage, top-down modulations consistently enhance the relevant instrument’s representation during an instrument segregation task, whereas such an enhancement is not observed during an instrument integration task. These findings extend previous results from speech tracking to the tracking of multi-instrument music and, furthermore, inform current theories on polyphonic music perception.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 230
Author(s):  
Michelle Elizabeth Phillips

The article reviewed in this commentary takes philosophical models of temporal experience as its starting point, in an exploration of how an "experience of succession" may be distinguished from a mere "succession of experience". It is proposed that context is the important factor in differentiating the two experiences, rather than duration. Context is accounted for in broad terms, with specific discussion of gesture, performance environment, and mental imagery. The discussion may usefully pave the way for future collaboration between philosophers and psychologists. However, there are multiple fundamental findings in music cognition research, vital to any consideration of the context in which musical experiences occur (e.g. meter, tonality, expectation, familiarity), that could be factored into this discussion. The ideas discussed could be developed with greater consideration of recent empirical studies in music perception. Perhaps then a theoretical model of the experience of succession of musical events could give rise to experimental hypotheses, which may then be tested in order to further refine such models.


2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1522) ◽  
pp. 1443-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Heaton

Descriptions of autistic musical savants suggest that they possess extraordinary skills within the domain. However, until recently little was known about the musical skills and potential of individuals with autism who are not savants. The results from these more recent studies investigating music perception, cognition and learning in musically untrained children with autism have revealed a pattern of abilities that are either enhanced or spared. For example, increased sensitivity to musical pitch and timbre is frequently observed, and studies investigating perception of musical structure and emotions have consistently failed to reveal deficits in autism. While the phenomenon of the savant syndrome is of considerable theoretical interest, it may have led to an under-consideration of the potential talents and skills of that vast majority of autistic individuals, who do not meet savant criteria. Data from empirical studies show that many autistic children possess musical potential that can and should be developed.


Author(s):  
Debi A. LaPlante ◽  
Heather M. Gray ◽  
Pat M. Williams ◽  
Sarah E. Nelson

Abstract. Aims: To discuss and review the latest research related to gambling expansion. Method: We completed a literature review and empirical comparison of peer reviewed findings related to gambling expansion and subsequent gambling-related changes among the population. Results: Although gambling expansion is associated with changes in gambling and gambling-related problems, empirical studies suggest that these effects are mixed and the available literature is limited. For example, the peer review literature suggests that most post-expansion gambling outcomes (i. e., 22 of 34 possible expansion outcomes; 64.7 %) indicate no observable change or a decrease in gambling outcomes, and a minority (i. e., 12 of 34 possible expansion outcomes; 35.3 %) indicate an increase in gambling outcomes. Conclusions: Empirical data related to gambling expansion suggests that its effects are more complex than frequently considered; however, evidence-based intervention might help prepare jurisdictions to deal with potential consequences. Jurisdictions can develop and evaluate responsible gambling programs to try to mitigate the impacts of expanded gambling.


2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Paulmann ◽  
Sarah Jessen ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz

The multimodal nature of human communication has been well established. Yet few empirical studies have systematically examined the widely held belief that this form of perception is facilitated in comparison to unimodal or bimodal perception. In the current experiment we first explored the processing of unimodally presented facial expressions. Furthermore, auditory (prosodic and/or lexical-semantic) information was presented together with the visual information to investigate the processing of bimodal (facial and prosodic cues) and multimodal (facial, lexic, and prosodic cues) human communication. Participants engaged in an identity identification task, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were being recorded to examine early processing mechanisms as reflected in the P200 and N300 component. While the former component has repeatedly been linked to physical property stimulus processing, the latter has been linked to more evaluative “meaning-related” processing. A direct relationship between P200 and N300 amplitude and the number of information channels present was found. The multimodal-channel condition elicited the smallest amplitude in the P200 and N300 components, followed by an increased amplitude in each component for the bimodal-channel condition. The largest amplitude was observed for the unimodal condition. These data suggest that multimodal information induces clear facilitation in comparison to unimodal or bimodal information. The advantage of multimodal perception as reflected in the P200 and N300 components may thus reflect one of the mechanisms allowing for fast and accurate information processing in human communication.


2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Greasley

It has been estimated that graphology is used by over 80% of European companies as part of their personnel recruitment process. And yet, after over three decades of research into the validity of graphology as a means of assessing personality, we are left with a legacy of equivocal results. For every experiment that has provided evidence to show that graphologists are able to identify personality traits from features of handwriting, there are just as many to show that, under rigorously controlled conditions, graphologists perform no better than chance expectations. In light of this confusion, this paper takes a different approach to the subject by focusing on the rationale and modus operandi of graphology. When we take a closer look at the academic literature, we note that there is no discussion of the actual rules by which graphologists make their assessments of personality from handwriting samples. Examination of these rules reveals a practice founded upon analogy, symbolism, and metaphor in the absence of empirical studies that have established the associations between particular features of handwriting and personality traits proposed by graphologists. These rules guide both popular graphology and that practiced by professional graphologists in personnel selection.


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