This study explored undergraduate music majors' strategies in two-part dictation. Sixty volunteers answered a questionnaire on their musical background, learning styles, and dictation methods. They then took part in three dictation sessions. Two sessions directed attention to rhythm first or pitch first, and one session was a non-directed control dictation. Treatments were counterbalanced across 6 groups (n = 10). Dependent measures were pitch and rhythm accuracy scores on dictations. Analysis of variance showed no order effects. A repeated measures MANOVA (pitch and rhythm by 3 conditions) showed a significant effect for condition ($p < .0001$). Higher rhythm accuracy resulted from the rhythm-first condition, compared to the non-directed ($p < .05$) and pitch-first ($p < .0001$) conditions. Pitch accuracy was not affected by condition. Accuracy was unrelated to any of the covariates examined (instrumental information, years of theory and counterpoint study, keyboard skill, learning style and private strategy). Results suggest that in polyphonic dictation, attending to rhythm first and pitch afterwards may be an effective way of maximizing rhythmic accuracy.

One of the main responsibilities of a sound engineer is to control the quality of the sound during the recording process. An important qualitative aspect of a recording, besides the musicality of the performance, is its timbral content. Proper level and spectral balance between the mixed elements of the recording and the absence of extraneous noises and distortion are key elements. Therefore, timbre perception acuity is an essential skill for sound engineers. / This thesis proposes a computer-assisted system as a training tool for developing and maintaining aural skills related to timbre perception. A set of criteria for the design of such a system based on current knowledge in timbre perception is presented and an exploratory implementation is described. Limits of the current system are discussed and areas that need further investigation are identified.

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The Cognition of Atonal Pitch Structures investigated the ability of a listener to internally organize atonal pitch sequences into hierarchical structures. Based on an information processing model proposed by Deutsch and Feroe (1981), the internal organization of well processed pitch sequences will result in the formation of hierarchical structures. The more efficiently information is processed by the listener, the more organized its internal hierarchical representation in memory. Characteristic of a well organized internal hierarchy As redundancy. Each ensuing level of the hierarchical structure represents a parsimoniuos recoding of the lower levels. In this respect, each higher hierarchical level contains the most salient structural features extracted from lower levels.Because efficient internal organization increases redundancy, more memory space must be allocated to retain a well processed pitch sequence. Based on this assumption, an experiment was conducted to determine the amount of information retained when listening to pre-organized atonal pitch structures and randomly organized pitch structures. Using time duration estimation techniques (Ornstein, 1969; Block, 1974), the relative size of memory allocated for a processing task was determined. Since the subjective experience of time is influenced by the amount of information processed and retained in memory (Ornstein, 1969; Block, 1974), longer time estimations corresponded to larger memory space allocations, and thus, more efficiently organized hierarchical structures.ConclusionThough not significant at the .05 level (p-.21), the results indicate a tendency to suggest that atonal pitch structures were more efficiently organized into internal hierarchical structures than were random pitch structures. The results of the experiment also suggest that a relationship exists between efficient internal hierarchical organization and increased attention and enjoyment. The present study also investigated the influence that other parameters may have on the cognition of pre-organized music. Of interest were the characteristics inherent in music which may facilitate internal organization.

We are capable of effortlessly parsing a complex scene presented to us. In order to do this, we must segregate objects from each other and from the background. While this process has been extensively studied in vision science, it remains relatively less understood in auditory science. This thesis sought to characterize the neuroelectric correlates of auditory scene analysis using electroencephalography. Chapter 2 determined components evoked by first-order energy boundaries and second-order pitch boundaries. Chapter 3 determined components evoked by first-order and second-order discontinuous motion boundaries. Both of these chapters focused on analysis of event-related potential (ERP) waveforms and time-frequency analysis. In addition, these chapters investigated the contralateral nature of a negative ERP component. These results extend the current knowledge of auditory scene analysis by providing a starting point for discussing and characterizing first-order and second-order boundaries in an auditory scene. / x, 90 leaves : col. ill. ; 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xi, 102 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have reported evidence of impaired auditory information processing in patients with schizophrenia. Some of these findings, such as the impaired P50 sensory gating, are consistent with a loss of inhibitory function. In auditory ERP studies using pairs of stimuli the size of the second response relative to the first response has been taken to indicate the extent to which responsiveness has recovered after a period of time. This variation of responsiveness has been termed the 'recovery cycle,' and is regarded as a measure of the time course of recovery of excitability of cortical neurons after stimulation. The recovery cycle of the auditory N1 ERP component was measured in 17 patients with schizophrenia and 17 age- and sexmatched healthy volunteers, and 12 patients with bipolar disorder and 12 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers. Subjects performed a visual distraction task while listening to tone pairs, presented with intra-pair intervals of 1, 3, 5 or 7 s, with inter-pair intervals ranging between 9-13 s. Patients with schizophrenia had significantly reduced N1 amplitudes for S1 stimuli compared to healthy volunteers. For N1 amplitudes elicited by S2 stimuli there was a significant group effect whilst the main effect of intra-pair interval was not significant. A significant quadratic effect across ISI intervals was present in the healthy volunteer group, which was not significant in the schizophrenia group. Patients with bipolar disorder did not differ in N1 amplitudes elicited by S1 stimuli compared to healthy volunteers. There was no evidence of significant group differences in the recovery cycle effect between bipolar patients and matched healthy volunteers. The results provide evidence of inhibitory auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia, and further suggest that deficits in attention found in patients with schizophrenia, as indexed by reductions of auditory N1 amplitude, may be associated with impairments in inhibitory processes. In addition, different recovery cycle effects were found in patients with schizophrenia and those with bipolar disorder. Further study of the recovery cycle paradigm used in this study may lead to the development of an objective diagnostic tool.

Bibliography : leaves 226-237. / xii, 237 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 1995

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Missouri University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed March 28, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-154).