Music and the Cognitive Sciences 1990
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flashed in one visual field (here the picture of the violin is flashed in the left visual field), it is conveyed to the contralateral hemisphere (here the right hemisphere). In normal subjects, because of visual transfer across the corpus callosum, both hemispheres see the picture; in split-brain patients, no such transfer is possible, so only one hemisphere sees the picture. A tachistoscope is used to flash the picture for 150msec, faster than the eye can move, otherwise the picture might reach both hemispheres because of eye movements. A fast Fourier transform of the first 400msec of the violin sound is shown at the top of the figure [y axis=time in msec, x=kilohertz (kHz, or 1000cps), and height=relative amplitude (quantized sample value units)]. An example of one of the five melodic structures used to present the instrument sounds (here chromatic-variable) is also shown. In the next trial, a trumpet will play and a picture of a piano is flashed to the left hemisphere, and so on. (See text for further details of the experimental procedure).