Music Cog Final

serial ratios

relationships between adjacent notes

can be broken down by durations

Simplest is a 1:1

isochronous ratio

1:1 ratio of time spans between two tones

Rhythmic temporal window

200- 1000ms

Cerebellum function

musical timing- ABSOLUTE timing not relative

balance and coordination

basal ganglia function

neural entrainment- internal brain oscillations sync to external stimulus

movement

Parkinson's disease disrupts the basal ganglia, leading to impaired motor behaviour

supplementary motor area

active during rhythm perception- even without any intention to move, suggests a deep link between rhythm and movement

left temporal lobe

important for rhythm perception

Patients who had portions of their left temporal lobes removed showed difficulty discriminating short rhythmic time intervals

categorical perception

tendency to treat ranges of values along a physical continuum as if they are the same until they get to a limit where the perception completely changes- how we perceive musical rhythm

Rhythm

variations in duration

ALL sounds have rhythm

tempo

the ABSOLUTE speed/ rate that music is going to

Get tempo from averaging inter-onset intervals across a performance

doesn't need any reference to any other musical structure

beat

not the same as tempo

pulse we naturally synchronize to

Preferred is around 120 bpm

beat remains constant in a song

we cave have beat without having notes per measure (meter)

meter

A repeating pattern of strong and weak beats that provides us with the underlying framework for rhythm

Must have rhythm and beat to have meter

spontaneous tempo

People have a naturally occurring preferred tapping rate

older adults tend to SLOWER tempos

simple rhythm

fewer notes which don't align with primary beat

tapping in /4 grouping

complex rhythm

Individual tones can group into higher-level patterns

ideal grouping less clear-> more ambiguous

Continuum of musical time- class example

similar to Shepard tone- beat is continuously rising

in this example beat is getting faster while it's not actually moving

RHYTHM gets faster, but the metrical structure is the same

Timing and expressivity

X axis: expressivity (human -> robot)

Y axis: emotionality (0.0-0.7)

emotionality peaks at high human expression (125%-100%)

Like an actor bringing a script to life, a musician brings sheet music to life (with upper boundaries- may lose essense of piece with too much emotional expression)

singings involves:

phonation, respiration, articulation

social psychology continuum

Socio-biology Discursive

Genetic material Group processes

Epigenetic material

<------------------------------------------------------>

Perception of what is constant and dissonant has changed throughout history

Yerkes- Dodson Law

X- axis: amount of arousal aka anxiety (low<-----> high)

Y-axis: performance quality (poor<------> good)

bell shaped curve

too low- lackluster

too high- performance anxiety

social facilitation

can be positive or negative

Observation may improve the performance of the practiced task

Basic tasks- when we are watched, we do better

aka social inhibition

if it's a new task we perform worse when watched

This is worsened with evaluation rather than mere presence

trait anxiety

personality-based tendency towards anxiety

state anxiety

temporarily induced by situaiton

distraction theory

intrusive thoughts shift one's attention to task-irrelevant aspects

(such as what the audience may be thinking) and leaving limited

attentional and working memory needed for optimal execution of the task

explicit monitoring theory

when performing you begin to overthink actions you don't typically think about

these implicit practives becomes explicit with nerves

how to improve performance anxiety

exposure therapy- fake audience and fake judges

performers engaging with an engaged supportive audience can actually HELP performers

effects of performers

Beatle mania or beaver mania

seeing celebrities and fainting/ hyperventilating

Why expressive timing exists

To communicate musical structure

As a metaphor for physical motion

To convey emotion

Phrase-final lengthening:

Performers slow down near the end of a musical phrase (analogous to pausing at the end of a spoken clause).

Phrase-initial acceleration

Performers speed up at the beginning of a phrase.

Melody lead

In simultaneous notes, melody notes are played slightly before accompanying notes to make the melody stand out perceptually

syncopation

when onsets align with weak beats while strong beats are silent — does not necessarily disrupt the underlying beat

meter and rhythm don't align

aspects of transformational leadership

charisma

inspirational motivation

intellectual stimulation

lack of connection harms product!!

chameleon effect

gestures affect performers-> timing of group (obviously)

Chameleon: the shape of the conductor's mouth can impact the singer's shape of mouth!!

Face of conductors can impact the expression of the choir

The conductor's gestures effect on audience

gestures conductors using the audience's perception of sound, independent of the actual sound of the players

prioritized integrative attending

the acts of attending to the self and others

matters

less about if you're right, more about being aware of what others are doing

may have different ways of playing when wanting to blend in vs. stand out

- when projecting: louder, higher overtones

- when blending in: quieter and less high overtones

3 paradoxes in group music

Leadership vs. democracy

- Tension between the two

- May not want to have a leader yet a leader emerges

Playing 'second fiddle'

- Secondary supporting role

Confrontation vs. compromise

- Must have consistent negotiation

Music affecting consumer behaviour- wine example

A store selling wine played German or French music

led to an increase in sales for respective wines

Music affecting consumer behaviour-cafeteria example

played pop, classical, and easy listening music in a cafeteria

Evaluation of dining for condition:

pop: upbeat and fun

classical: sophisticated

easy listening: cheap and down market

Music affecting consumer behaviour- bites per minute example

The speed at which people eat depends on

no music= baseline

slow music= 19% more bpm

fast music: 36% more bpm

Music affecting consumer behavior- florist behavior

Customer's in the florists shop spent more money buying when love songs play in the background compared to pop or no music

gender roles in music

flute as being seen for women vs. drums for men

Some stereotypes date back centuries

In 18th century Germany it was acceptable for higher class women to play lute, harp, piano, and violin

Western school age children see flutes, violins, and clarinets as appropriate for girls and drums, trumpets, and guitars for boys

asking about musical groups

asking for personal favorite, societal favorite, and recent listening

Female responses;

Personal favorite: 2male: 1 female

Societal favorite: 7:1

Male responses:

Personal favorite: 7:1

Societal favorite: 9:1

People anticipate a greater predominance of male preference in others as opposed to themselves

prosocial benefits of music

bouncing experiment (insync or asynch)

Exp 1: interpersonal movement

Exp 2: do effects transfer?

Exp 3: Interaction type

mozart effect

now discounted belief that listening to Mozart can make your baby smarter

what IS true: doing something you enjoy before an exam can help you do better

impact of visual info when choosing competition winners

When asked which musician won the competition

conditions: only choose sound, video, or video and sound

The guessers were best at choosing in conditions with video only

Mechanisms Explaining Music's Effect on Consumer Behavior

Arousal: Faster or louder music heightens physiological arousal, speeding up automatic behaviors like eating, walking, and talking.

Entrainment: Consumers synchronize to the pulse of background music, setting their behavioral tempo. Slower tempos encourage lingering (beneficial in high-end retail or restaurants); faster tempos suit quick-turnaround environments like fast food.

Priming: Music activates thoughts, associations, and cultural connotations that guide purchasing decisions — such as associating French accordion music with French wine. Related to this is musical fit — when music shares connotations with a product, it makes those attributes more salient and memorable.

cognitivist view of musical meaning

music expresses emotions listeners comprehend

emotivist view of musical meaning

music induces emotions in listeners

four types of musical meaning

associative meaning

iconic meaning

contextual meaning

semantic meaning

associative meaning

sound and image association can be built

This is where the meaning of sound is derived

E.g., associating a willow tree with someone weeping (posture like someone sulking)

Emergent meaning

Darling They're Playing our Tune

iconic meaning

This associative meaning can be so strong that the IMAGE can represent the SOUND

e.g. a mounty or maple syrup can represent Canada

Anthems- represent countries

Even without lyrics clearly represents country

Nothing CLEARLY Canadian about actual notes just relies on association

contextual meaning

meaning only makes sense within a context and may not be understoof without all the different elements

focus becomes clearer over time

example: piece of music that wasn't very harmonious or nice sounding got low ratings- given that it got dedicated to the victims of Hiroshima- the music is rated a lot higher

semantic meaning

non word passages of music can communicate ideas similar to how speech can

example: when played a sound and asked if it represents needle or river (reality vs illlusion etc.) people are basically unanimous

happens through semantic priming

semantic priming

You get a prime and a target

Prime: last night man cut his finger and went to hospital where he saw a

"nurse" or "potato"

Slower to say word "potato"

N400 response- neural indicator of semantic mismatch

Negative neural response

Also happens in musical information

Primed with language and also music

cross-cultural semantic meaning of music

Given musical sample:

Let people choose which word was associated with music

33 sound examples

3 word choices for each

Compared German to Mafa individuals (unfamiliar with Western musical culture)

Percent of choices for intended target words vs. unrelated target words

For German- lots of choices for the intended

For Mafa individuals- LOTS fewer choices for the intended word target (around chance)

For Mafa individuals- when they didn't get intended one Mafa individual have lots of agreement for which category they're choosing. Music can have meaning even if not the intended meaning by composer

Isomorphism

Susan Langer

meaning is derived from musical structure and extramusical structure (noises outside of music)

e.g. having a song with screaming and crying

Ocean example

music can express something nonmusical when the form of a musical event matches the form of something outside the music, such as an emotion, a story, a dance, or a scene in nature.

Cognitivism

Peter Kivy

Our ability to enjoy music is a direct function of our ability to understand it

For example a picture of a person climbing a mountain

Without other context can't tell if they're falling/ climbing

Need full context for message

Kivy and Langer both from field of philosophy not a scientific perspective

Ocean example

Intentionality

Leonard Meyer

Interested in Gestalt grouping principles He defines 'musical meaning' as follows: 'one musical event meaning because it points to and makes us expect another musical event'

Looks at TYPES of meaning

hypothetical: what we're expecting from music

evident: only comes after hearing whole piece and understanding how the pieces work together

determinate: relationship between hypothetical and evident

Evident meaning example:

man gets asked what restaurant you went to? Says what's the name of the red flower? Other man says rose? Man turns to his wife, Rose to say which restaurant?

Unexpected

more bucket example

ITPRA

David Huron

imagination, tension, prediction, reaction, appraisal

more bucket example

dog example of ITPRA

Dog video playing fetch

Imagination: dog imagines possibilities for future stimulus before seeing the ball

Tension: right before ball is thrown dog's muscles become tense and attention is very focused in preparation for anticipated event

Prediction: dog predicts WHEN the react as the person starts to throw the ball

Reaction: dog reacts to the stimulus- starts to run

Appraisal: dog judges (appraises) outcome of expectation when he sees the ball

If person didn't throw the ball vs. if they did was the reaction correct

Constrictive valence

when there is a disagreement between prediction and appraisal

program music

music that is intended to evoke images or convey the impression of events.

pure music

Also called absolute music. Music that has no referential or emotional meaning for listener

emergent meaning

Meaning may not be present till we get a certain amount

e.g. C-A can be C-A-T or C-A-B

Like Meyers intentionality theories

As well as Huron's ITPRA

Meaning is from FULL CONTEXT of all notes (for musical context)

composition of rhythm across cultures

Result: specific properties of language play a role in the music created

English: stress-timed language- spaced between syllables are more variable

French: syllable-timed language- more equal space between syllables

In music:

English- bigger pattern differences

French- 1:1 pattern differences each time

English composers (stress timed)have more rhythmic variability than French composers (syllable timed)

Huron: replicated but found a smaller effects

Used less specific criteria for composers

Used American composers and was the same as English composers

German and Austrian composers were also the same

Difference between rhythmic patterns of English and French composers

aesthetic perspectice

music exists solely to be beautiful

- some disagree with this view as much music is designed to counteract beauty

self referential

the music's meaning extends solely to itself and nothing else

frequencies humans can hear

20-20,000HZ

presbycusis

hearing loss associated with aging

• specifically a loss of sensitivity to high frequency

critical band

refers to a range of frequencies that evoke a similar response in the auditory system

consonance

combinations of notes that sound harmonious and pleasant

dissonance

combinations on notes that clash and sound unsettling

• this is maximal when there are overtones that fir within the same critical band while not being identical in frequency

critical band: range of frequencies which evoke a similar response in the auditory system

amplitude

corresponds with loudness

• perceived loudness is based on intensity

music induced hearing loss

aka noise induced hearing loss

permissible exposure limit is max of 90dB over an 8 hours period

young people who use personal listening devices shows signs of irreeversiblie hearing loss

timbre

aspect of sound that distinguishes different voices or instruments even when they play the same note at the same volume

frequency relationships

each tone produced by most instruments make up not only the fundamental frequency but also its overtones series

characteristics can be seen in waveforms

Indexicality

a thing that represents a thing e.g a footprint represents a foot was there

musical sounds directly point to, indicate, or are physically connected to specific contexts, emotions, or social meanings, rather than just symbolizing them

affordance

the actionable possibilities that the environment and the individual provides

how the brain organizes sound

proximity: groups sounds coming from the same source (pitch)

similarity: similar sounds come from the same source (timbre)

closure: brain fills in gaps to estimate where sounds are going

symmetry

common fate: a sound coming from x direction will continue to come fron x direction

past experience: what brain know about the world and sound

marimba illusion

video and audio rearranged

video with long movement and video with short movement

asked to estimate auditory lengths and ignore the gesture

video with the long movement - audio perceived as longer

McGurk Effect

Seeing someone's lip movements changes what syllable we hear them say

Gesture looks like it caused the sound so brain fuses the two into a unified experience

e.g. with the video can hear 'ga, ga, da, da, ba, ba'

with eyes closed only; 'ba, ba, ba'!

sensory integration!

- hearing only 'ba'

- but we see lips go from saying 'ba' -> 'ga'

- sensory integration leads to hearing 'da, da'

musical theatres sensory integration

We see lip movements on screen and hear sounds from speakers (Not coming from same place)

- brain fuses stimuli together leading to the assumption that info is coming from lips

Causality and Sound Type

Looking at video of a marimba hit and hearing either the marimba, a piano, a horn, clarinet, voice, or white noise

looked at visual influence of a long or short marimba hit on the auditory perception

- very clear that voice, white noise etc. don't fit with the video- so almost no influence of long- short hit on perception of sound length

- not as clear with piano- short or long marimba hit impacted auditory perception of this sound

Long/ short visual condition affects participants long/short answers based on logicality of matching sound to gesture

limits in how much our brain will pair sounds and sources (lack or pairing but success b/c brain is correct)

audio- visual integration

for a spatial task, the visual system dominates

- needs 30 frames in a second on TV to convince brain of movement

for a temporal task, the auditory dominates

- needs 44000 samples per second to convince brain of sound!

flat tone

sustained period of sound/ sharp increase and decay (not natural)

natural tone

tone with gradual increase and natural decay

sounds of musical instruments vs. tone beeps

musical instruments: more gradual increase and decrease of sound, more variance in the sound experience for the same note- not 'perfect', include overtones of fundmantal note

beeps: are pure tones, always the exact same

issue with some auditory perception studies

around 90% use simplistic sounds: beeps, clicks etc.

less than 10% use percussive sounds

Only 10% of actual everyday sounds are simplistic!!

temporal order judgment task

way of looking at strength of binding across modalities

for piano and guitar there is no benefit of congruity and no unity assumption

- same integration of piano/piano and piano/guitar

speech is special

- unity assumption for female voice/ face and male voice/ face

piano and guitar very similar amplitude envelopes

amplitude envelopes

amount of energy over time

- energy decay over time vs. no change in energy (pure tone)

which type of gestures by a musician affects the audience the most

gestures outside of what's explicitly needed to make music

waveform in music

amplitude over time

hard to tell what comes from what- doesn't capture everything

• blind to spectral info

sonogram

frequency over time ( best representation)

power spectrum

amplitude over frequency

special interval

twice the frequency of the lower note- or all the integer multiples of the fundamental

overtones of 100Hz

200Hz, 300Hz, 400Hz, 500Hz, etc.

octaves of 100Hz

200Hz, 400Hz, 800Hz, 1600Hz

doubling the frequencies

overtone series

complex tone: all overtones together

brain binds these together- one sound not separate