Although many researchers investigate the senses separately, most people have a coherent conscious experience of the world that is not divided into separate perceptions of vision, hearing, or other senses. The brain integrates the information received from our senses into a unified representation of the world around us. Previous research has demonstrated that what people perceive with one sense can influence their perception of stimuli with the other senses (Roffler & Butler, 1968; Marks, 2000). The current set of studies was designed to illuminate the associations between musical pitch and visuospatial motion. The first two experiments with infants revealed that 11-month-old infants are sensitive to associations between ascending and descending musical pitch and the direction of an object’s motion. Additionally, two more experiments with infants revealed that infants of the same age do not show the associations of rightward motion with ascending pitch and leftward motion with descending pitch that adults have demonstrated in some experiments (Eitan & Granot, 2006). The fifth experiment tested the influence of ascending and descending musical stimuli on making a visuospatial motion to a target location. Adult subjects demonstrated faster reaction times when using a trackball to move a cursor to a target location on a computer screen when the direction of the target was congruent with the musical stimulus to which they were listening. The effect was stronger for vertical target locations than for horizontal target locations. The results of these studies indicate that both infants and adults are sensitive to associations between musical pitch and visuospatial motion in the vertical plane, and adults may also make associations between musical pitch and visuospatial motion in the horizontal plane. / text

Musical timbre is a complex and multidimensional entity which provides information regarding the properties of a sound source (size, material, etc.). When it comes to music, however, timbre does not merely carry environmental information, but it also conveys aesthetic meaning. In this sense, semantic description of musical tones is used to express perceptual concepts related to artistic intention. Recent advances in sound processing and synthesis technology have enabled the production of unique timbral qualities which cannot be easily associated with a familiar musical instrument. Therefore, verbal description of these qualities facilitates communication between musicians, composers, producers, audio engineers etc. The development of a common semantic framework for musical timbre description could be exploited by intuitive sound synthesis and processing systems and could even influence the way in which music is being consumed. This work investigates the relationship between musical timbre perception and its semantics. A set of listening experiments in which participants from two different language groups (Greek and English) rated isolated musical tones on semantic scales has tested semantic universality of musical timbre. The results suggested that the salient semantic dimensions of timbre, namely: luminance, texture and mass, are indeed largely common between these two languages. The relationship between semantics and perception was further examined by comparing the previously identified semantic space with a perceptual timbre space (resulting from pairwise dissimilarity rating of the same stimuli). The two spaces featured a substantial amount of common variance suggesting that semantic description can largely capture timbre perception. Additionally, the acoustic correlates of the semantic and perceptual dimensions were investigated. This work concludes by introducing the concept of partial timbre through a listening experiment that demonstrates the influence of background white noise on the perception of musical tones. The results show that timbre is a relative percept which is influenced by the auditory environment.

Recently, there have been efforts to design more efficient ways to internalize music by applying the disciplines of cognition, psychology, temporality, aesthetics, and philosophy. Bringing together the fields of art and science, computational techniques can also be applied to musical analysis. Although a wide range of research projects have been conducted, the automatization of music analysis remains emergent. Importantly, patterns are revealed by using automated tools to analyze core musical elements created from melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, high-level features that are perceivable by the human ear. For music to be captured and successfully analyzed by a computer, however, one needs to extract certain information found in the lower-level features of amplitude, frequency, and duration. Moreover, while the identity of harmonic progressions, melodic contour, musical patterns, and pitch quantification are crucial factors in traditional music analysis, these alone are not exclusive. Visual representations are useful tools that reflect form and structure of non-conventional musical repertoire. Because I regard the fluidity of music and visual shape as strongly interactive, the ultimate goal of this thesis is to construct a practical tool that prepares the visual material used for musical composition. By utilizing concepts of time, computation, and composition, this tool effectively integrates computer science, signal processing, and music perception. This will be obtained by presenting two concepts, one abstract and one mathematical, that will provide materials leading to the original composition. To extract the desired visualization, I propose a fully automated tool for musical analysis that is grounded in both the mid-level elements of loudness, density, and range, and low-level features of frequency and duration. As evidenced by my sinfonietta, Equilibrium, this tool, capable of rapidly analyzing a variety of musical examples such as instrumental repertoire, electro-acoustic music, improvisation and folk music, is highly beneficial to my proposed compositional procedure.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of music perception in predicting phonological awareness in five- and six-year-old children. This study was based on the hypothesis that music perception and phonological awareness appear to have parallel auditory perceptual mechanisms. Previous research investigating the relationship between these constructs—music perception and phonological awareness—has been promising, but inconclusive. Phonological awareness is an important component of early literacy which many children struggle to acquire. If the constructs are shown to be related, music-based interventions may then be developed to promote phonological awareness, thus enhancing early literacy. Music perception, phonological awareness, and visual-spatial skills of 119 five- and six-year-old children were tested. The researcher administered the Children’s Music Aptitude Test (Stevens, 1987) in order to assess perception of pitch, rhythm, and melody. Subsequently, the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999) was administered in order to measure phonological awareness skills, including blending, elision, and sound matching. The Visual Spatial Relations subtest of the Woodcock Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) was later used to assess visual spatial skills. Structural equation modeling (SEM) allowed the researcher to model relationships between the latent variables to investigate the contribution of music perception, visual-spatial skills, and age to phonological awareness. Results supported the hypothesis that music perception, visual spatial skills, and age predict phonological awareness. Additionally, music perception made a statistically significant contribution to phonological awareness, when controlling for visual spatial skills and age. Specifically, music perception predicted a larger amount of standardized unit change in phonological awareness than did the other predictors in the theory. Thus, music perception appears to have a stronger relationship with phonological awareness than age or visual spatial skills. Further, results showed that a model without music perception as a predictor of phonological awareness was not supported. These findings confirm that music perception plays a unique role in predicting phonological awareness, above and beyond the contribution made by visual spatial skills and age. This study’s results could be used in support of the development of music-based interventions for promoting phonological awareness in five- and six-year-old children.

This PhD in Music Composition is in the form of a written dissertation plus a series of electroacoustic music compositions on Audio CD. The thesis develops the “Segregation, Integration, Assimilation and Meaning” (SIAM) framework for the analysis of acousmatic musical works derived from research on auditory cognition. This framework is applied to a detailed analysis of Denis Smalley’s “Wind Chimes”. The dissertation finally asserts that the framework developed for the analysis of acousmatic music has been demonstrated to be effective and it discusses some implications for future research. (For complete abstract open document)

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Minha dissertaÃÃo procura elaborar, avaliar e relacionar pesquisas no campo da percepÃÃo musical enquanto tema e enquanto disciplina acadÃmica na perspectiva de atentar para uma metodologia de ensino que seja atualizada e prÃxima do nosso contexto brasileiro. Relata os processos pessoais que me despertaram a transformar minhas experiÃncias perceptivo-musicais em ciÃncia da educaÃÃo musical. Pondera sobre os processos sociais que ajudam a construir a percepÃÃo musical brasileira sob a luz de autores que reconhecem a relevÃncia do conhecimento produzido nos paÃses dominados. Tenta um diÃlogo entre os pensadores da percepÃÃo musical, sobretudo como disciplina acadÃmica. Apresenta a proposta curricular da disciplina de PercepÃÃo e Solfejo do curso de Licenciatura em EducaÃÃo Musical da Universidade Federal do Cearà (UFC) e discute com seus professores sobre suas escolhas teÃrico-metodolÃgicas. Na Ãltima seÃÃo, sopesa o conceito dos graduandos da UFC acerca da relevÃncia e da contribuiÃÃo da disciplina de PercepÃÃo e Solfejo nas suas formaÃÃes. Como resultado geral, apresenta a fragilidade do desenvolvimento perceptivo baseado nos ditados musicais para descobrir uma nova abordagem vinculada à atitude coletiva de expressÃo consciente. Confirma a viabilidade do solfejo mÃvel e sugere, alÃm da prÃtica de solfejo, a necessidade de utilizaÃÃo do corpo e a alternativa de transitar por disciplinas como harmonia, contraponto, histÃria e estÃtica que tradicionalmente nÃo encontram um lugar na academia para se reencontrarem. Indica a necessidade de se conhecer os grupos envolvidos no processo de construÃÃo do saber, recomenda a utilizaÃÃo da canÃÃo brasileira como repertÃrio essencial e mostra, para alÃm das fronteiras do presente trabalho, a lacuna da elaboraÃÃo de um mÃtodo brasileiro de percepÃÃo musical que utilize como excipiente a confecÃÃo orientada de arranjos de mÃsica popular e possa, a partir da referÃncia prÃxima da afirmaÃÃo experimentada da tradiÃÃo, estar aberto a um diÃlogo epistemolÃgico com outras culturas musicais.

Previous studies of musical creativity lacked strong foundations in music theory and music analysis. The goal of the current project was to merge the study of music perception and cognition with the study of expertise-based musical creativity. Three hypotheses about the nature of creativity were tested. According to the productive-thinking hypothesis, creativity represents a complete break from past knowledge. According to the reproductive-thinking hypothesis, creators develop a core collection of kernel ideas early in their careers and continually recombine those ideas in novel ways. According to what can be called the field hypothesis, creativity involves more than just the individual creator; creativity represents an interaction between the individual creator, the domain in which the creator works, and the field, or collection of institutions that evaluate creative products. In order to evaluate each hypothesis, the musical components of a sample of songs by two eminent 20th century American songwriters, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, were analyzed. Five separate analyses were constructed to examine changes in the psychologically salient musical components of Berlin's and Porter's songs over time. In addition, comparisons between hit songs and non-hit songs were also drawn to investigate whether the composers learned from their cumulative songwriting experiences. Several developmental trends were found in the careers of both composers; however, there were few differences between hit songs and non-hit songs on all measures. The careers of both composers contain evidence of productive and reproductive creativity. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Psychology

The perceptual reality of the music theoretical relation between the Neapolitan chord and the dominant / and the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate was investigated within the chord priming paradigm. In Experiment 1, expectation towards the dominant chord after the Neapolitan chord was observed in Turkish musicians and non-musicians with piano timbre. In Experiment 2, expectation towards the dominant chord after the Neapolitan chord was observed in European musicians but not in European non-musicians. In Experiment 3, Turkish non-musicians were tested with Shepard tones / but it was not possible to observe any priming effects. To understand effects of cultural background on the difference between the results of Experiments 1 and 2 further studies are necessary. In Experiments 4-5, the perceptual reality of the relation between the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate was investigated in Turkish non-musicians. In Experiment 4, chord sequences that included secondary dominant chords were played with Shepard tones / and they were scrambled with 2by2 scrambling algorithm. Experiment 5 was identical with Experiment 4, except chord sequences were played with the piano timbre. Experiment 6 was identical with Experiment 5, except chord sequences were scrambled with 4by4. However, in Experiments 4-6 detrimental effects of scrambling sequences that include secondary dominant chords on the priming of chords were not observed. Turkish non-musicians did perceive the relation between the secondary dominant chord and its diatonic associate. In neural network simulations of this thesis it was shown that statistical learning from the musical environment with self-organization could be achieved without committing the questionable assumptions of previous studies.

The aim of the thesis was to conduct a detailed examination of the evidence pertaining to the cerebral lateralisation of musical function. Theoretical models from the neuropsychological and cognitive psychology fields were employed, with emphasis placed on the way the models interrelate to gain a more coherent account of music cognition and its relationship to cerebral lateralisation. (For complete abstract open document.)

Based on research on the “McGurk Effect” (McGurk & McDonald, 1976) in speech perception, some researchers (e.g. Liberman & Mattingly, 1985) have argued that humans uniquely interpret auditory and visual (motor) speech signals as a single intended audiovisual articulatory gesture, and that such multisensory integration is innate and specific to language. Our goal for the present study was to determine if a McGurk-like Effect holds true for music perception as well, as a domain for which innateness and experience can be disentangled more easily than in language. We sought to investigate the effects of visual musical information on auditory music perception and judgment, the impact of music experience on such audiovisual integration, and the possible role of eye gaze patterns as a potential mediator for music experience and the extent of visual influence on auditory judgments. 108 participants (ages 18-40) completed a questionnaire and melody/rhythm perception tasks to determine music experience and abilities, and then completed speech and musical McGurk tasks. Stimuli were recorded from five sounds produced by a speaker or musician (cellist and trombonist) that ranged incrementally along a continuum from one type to another (e.g. non-vibrato to strong vibrato). In the audiovisual condition, these sounds were paired with videos of the speaker/performer producing one type of sound or another (representing either end of the continuum) such that the audio and video matched or mismatched to varying degrees. Participants indicated, on a 100-point scale, the extent to which the auditory presentation represents one end of the continuum or the other. Auditory judgments for each sound were then compared based on their visual pairings to determine the impact of visual cues on auditory judgments. Additionally, several types of music experience were evaluated as potential predictors of the degree of influence visual stimuli had on auditory judgments. Finally, eye gaze patterns were measured in a different sample of 15 participants to assess relationships between music experience and eye gaze patterns, and eye gaze patterns and extent of visual on auditory judgments. Results indicated a reliable “musical McGurk Effect” in the context of cello vibrato sounds, but weaker overall effects for trombone vibrato sounds and cello pluck and bow sounds. Limited evidence was found to suggest that music experience impacts the extent to which individuals are influenced by visual stimuli when making auditory judgments. The support that was obtained, however, indicated the possibility for diminished visual influence on auditory judgments based on variables associated with music “production” experience. Potential relationships between music experience and eye-gaze patterns were identified. Implications for audiovisual integration in the context of speech and music perception are discussed, and future directions advised.