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This practice-based PhD – ‘Inter-piece Sampling and Convolution’ – evolved against the background of composers such as Amon Tobin and Monty Adkins, who use techniques and workflows common to both acousmatic and electronica music. The pieces in this thesis are linked through a sustained commitment to working across these two musical contexts and through their relationships to source materials and pulses. Sound materials have been sampled from within the pieces themselves, and materials from older pieces have been convolved with newer sounds, furthering the connections between pieces. The continual feeding-forward of source material promoted the synchronous development of the conceptual tool: Input, Sculpt, Output, which brought about the evolution of intricate diagrams. All of the pieces are for fixed media, and nine of the ten are in 5.1-format surround sound. The complex web of interrelationships created by the process of sampling and convolving material from previous pieces demanded an innovative means of representation. This representation took on a diagrammatic form in order to facilitate the analysis of a sound’s continuous (re)appropriation, explicated within supporting text. The diagrams indicate the extensive use of sampling and convolution to connect pieces, and include embedded hyperlinks to audio at various stages. As a result, textual analysis of techniques and their implications takes place across multiple pieces, and results in a wider scope for individual commentaries. The hyperlinked nature of the diagrams provides a foundation for further research, and a number of conclusions are posited about the use of sampling and convolution across multiple pieces.

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For the past few decades, researchers have increased our understanding of how sound functions within various audio–visual media formats. With a different focus in mind, this study aims to identify the roles and functions of sound in relation to the game form Audio Games, in order to explore the potential of sound when acting as an autonomous narrative form. Because this is still a relatively unexplored research field, the main purpose of this study is to help establish a theoretical ground and stimulate further research within the field of audio games. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, this research relies on theoretical studies, examinations of audio games and contact with the audio game community. In order to reveal the roles of sound, the gathered data is analyzed according to both a contextual and a functional perspective. The research shows that a distinction between the terms ‘function’ and ‘role’ is important when analyzing sound in digital games. The analysis therefore results in the identification of two analytical levels that help define the functions and roles of an entity within a social context, named the Functional and the Interfunctional levels. In addition to successfully identifying three main roles of sound within audio games—each describing the relationship between sound and the entities game system, player and virtual environment—many other issues are also addressed. Consequently, and in accordance with its purpose, this study provides a broad foundation for further research of sound in both audio games and video games.

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Human newborns' response to decreased sound pressure level (SPL) was investigated with a localized headturning habituation procedure. Following criterion orientation (three headturns toward the sound out of four consecutive trials) and habituation (three consecutive trials with no headturns or headturns away from the sound), study 1 and 2 assessed newborn female infants' (M age = 41 hrs.) responses to lower-volume sounds immediately following habituation and following a 55-sec delay, respectively. Generalization of habituation to decreased volume following delay with recovery immediately following habituation was observed. Immediate recovery to decreased SPL contradicts a selective receptor adaptation view because a lower-intensity stimulus does not engage a separate set of receptor cells. It is proposed that generalization of habituation following delay involves recognition of the sound as familiar despite variations in volume.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1999.