Lamar Sorrento's Best Painting
absolute pitch
(AP)
The name given by psychologists to the phenomenon
musicians call
perfect pitch.
The ability found in a minority of listeners,
where the pitch of a tone can be accurately
identified without relying on an external
reference pitch.
See also
pitch,Hick-Hyman Law,
colored hearing.
acoustical
Pertaining to the objective physics of sound.
Used in contrast to
auditory --
which pertains to the subjective experience of a sound.
For example,
frequency
is a physical or acoustical property,
whereas
pitch
is a subjective or auditory property.
acrophase
The time of the day when an individual is
typically at his/her greatest arousal or energy level.
Introverts tend to reach acrophase earlier in the day
than is the case for extroverts (Tayer, 1996; p.16).
See also
arousal,
arousal compatibility preference,
personality.
active attention
The condition where a person willfully
directs their mental consideration
at some stimulus.
In contrast to
passive attention,
active attention is voluntary.
See also
attention.
Compare with
arousal.
adrenaline
See
epinephrine.
afferent nerves
Nerves which convey signals to the
brain from various parts of the body.
Afferent nerves communicate sensory and proprioceptive
information such as pain, pressure, taste, sound,
sight, etc. to the brain.
Contrasts with
efferent nerves.
agnosia
A neurological disorder which causes a partial or complete
loss of the ability to recognize otherwise familiar stimuli.
Auditory agnosia is an inability to recognize sounds.
See also
agraphia,
amusia,
anomia,
alexia,
aphasia,
aprosodia.
agraphia
A neurological disorder which causes a partial or complete loss of
a former ability to write.
Loss of the ability to notate music is known as
musical agraphia.
See also
agnosia,
alexia,
amusia,
anomia,
aphasia,
aprosodia.
alcohol
See
depressants.
alexia
A neurological disorder which causes a partial or complete loss of
a former ability to read.
Loss of the ability to read music is known as
musical alexia.
See also
agnosia,
agraphia,
amusia,
anomia,
aphasia,
aprosodia.
allusive listening
Allusive listening
is a presumed
listening mode
that may be said to occur
where a listener relates moments or features of
the music to similar moments or features in other musical works.
(`This reminds me of a passage in Bartók ...').
Allusive listening may be viewed as a form of referential listening in
which the referential connection is made to the domain of music itself.
Philip Tagg (1979) has made extensive use of allusive listening as a tool
for studying musical meaning.
Tagg has suggested that a dictionary is indeed a reasonable model of
meaning -- where a target word is understood in terms of a set of
synomyns.
Tagg has, in effect, created musical "dictionaries" by asking listeners
to construct lists of musical works of which a given work reminds them.
See
distracted listening,
tangential listening,
metaphysical listening,
signal listening,
sing-along listening,
lyric listening,
programmatic listening,
reminiscent listening,
identity listening,
retentive listening,
fault listening,
feature listening,
innovation listening,
memory scan listening,
directed listening,
distance listening,
ecstatic listening,
emotional listening,
kinesthetic listening,
performance listening.
See also
listening mode,
cognitive style.
AM
See
amplitude modulation.
amphetamines
See
stimulants.
amplitude
The magnitude or strength of a signal.
Amplitude is the degree of excursion about an average or
equilibrium value exhibited by some oscillating quantity.
For a vibrating object, amplitude may be expressed in terms
of the velocity of the object in space, or the pressure it
exerts, or other physical quantity.
Amplitude is commonly measured by one of three methods:
(1) the difference between the maximum excursion and
the equilibrium point ("peak amplitude"),
(2) the difference between the maximum positive and maximum
negative points of excursion ("peak-to-peak amplitude"),
and
(3) the standard deviation of all values ("RMS amplitude").
For signals of audible frequency, amplitude corresponds
roughly with our perception of
loudness.
See also
amplitude modulation.
amplitude modulation
(AM).
The varying of the
amplitude
of a signal, usually repetitively.
For signals of audible frequency, amplitude modulations
in the range of 1 Hz to ~15 Hz evoke a
tremolo effect.
See also
shimmer.
amusia
A general term referring to any neurological disorder which
interferes with musical functioning.
Amusias might include musical
alexia
(lost ability to read music), musical
agraphia
(lost ability to notate music), musical
anomia
(lost ability to name works, composers, styles, etc.),
and so on.
anchoring
The tendency to interpret a stimulus as a variant
of a
prototype.
Eleanor Rosch
(1975) showed that a line tilted 10 degrees
to the horizontal is perceived to be similar to a horizontal line.
The tilted line is mentally encoded as a slight variant
of the prototypic horizontal line.
The effect of anchoring has been demonstrated in melodies
by Bharucha (1984).
Recall that
Krumhansl and Kessler
found that,
in a given key context, the most stable tone is the tonic,
followed by the other tones of the tonic triad,
followed by the remaining scale tones, followed by the
non-scale tones.
In the perception of melodies, less stable tones tend
to become anchored to more stable tones that are close in pitch.
For example, in the key of C major, the pitch D has a tendency
to be anchored to either the neighboring C or E.
Similarly, the pitch D# has a tendency to be anchored to
the neared more stable pitch E.
See also
prototype,
schema,
focal stimulus,
tonal hierarchy.
anomia
A neurological disorder which causes a marked inability
to name otherwise familiar stimuli.
Auditory anomia is an inability to name sounds --
such as identifying the sound of a door bell
or passing automobiles.
Examples of musical anomias might include
a lost former ability to name musical works or styles,
or the inability to name musical instruments from their sounds.
See also
agnosia,
alexia.
antihistamines
See
depressants.
anxiety
A mental state of stress.
Anxiety is associated with high
cortisol
levels in the blood.
Behaviors include trembling, fidgeting, perspiring,
fast respiration, higher pulse rate and higher blood pressure.
An experiment carried out by Muzak Corporation
at St. Joseph's Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska showed
that sedative music can significantly reduce anxiety.
See also
arousal,
Thayer's model of moods.
aphasia
A general term referring to any neurological disorder which causes a complete or
partial loss of language-related abilities.
Loss of the ability to speak is referred to as
expressive aphasia.
Loss of the ability to understand spoken language is referred to as
receptive aphasia.
See also
agnosia,
agraphia,
alexia,
amusia,
anomia,
aprosodia.
aprosodia
A neurological disorder which causes a complete or partial loss of
prosodic
elements of speech production or reception.
Prosodic elements of speech include pitch inflections and
other features that indicate emotional tone -- such as anger,
contempt, joy, parody, etc.
Loss of the ability to speak with appropriate prosodic cues is referred to as
expressive aprosodia.
Loss of the ability to understand prosodic cues in spoken language
is referred to as
receptive aprosodia.
See also
agnosia,
agraphia,
alexia,
amusia,
anomia,
aphasia.
arousal
An individual's general metabolic readiness to perceive
and act.
Increased arousal is associated with increased heart rate,
increased body temperature, increased rate of breathing,
increased oxygen consumption, increased glucose uptake,
faster reaction times, and many other physiological changes.
Different levels of arousal are most evident in the contrast
between the states of sleep and wakefulness.
See also
acrophase,
tonic arousal,
phasic arousal,
lullaby,
stimulants,
depressants,
epinephrine,
norepinephrine.
arousal compatibility preference
Listeners tend to prefer music that matches their
pre-existing arousal level.
When asleep, for example, most people have a low tolerance for
music, especially when the music has a high level of stimulation.
Conversely, when in a highly aroused state, most listeners find
sedate music to be uninteresting or inappropriate.
When engaged in aerobic exercise, for example, listeners
show a strong aversion against sedate music -- even if the tempo of
the music matches the pace of the workout.
With increasing age, people often show an increased preference
for sedate music.
See also
arousal,
acrophase,
tonic arousal,
phasic arousal,
stimulants,
depressants.
associative memory
A simple form of memory that is established due
to the co-occurrence of two stimuli or events.
In the case of music, it is common for people
to form personal associations between some particular
musical work with a specific past circumstance where
the work was first (or frequently) encountered.
Associative memories may be entirely arbitrary.
For example, a "happy" musical work might be
associated with memories of a dangerous
or life-threatening event.
Conversely, a sedate musical work might be
associated with memories of an exciting or
thrilling event.
Associative memory is sometimes modelled using
so-called connectionist networks.
See also
memory,
priming.
attention
The mental state of focusing on some stimulus.
Sounds often signal changes in the environment,
and so selectively attending to certain sounds
can be an important strategy for survival.
Psychologists distinguish voluntary and involuntary
modes attention -- called
active attention
and
passive attention,
respectively.
Attention is often signalled by an
orienting response.
See also
dishabituation.
Compare with
arousal.
attenuate
To lessen; especially to lessen the
amplitude
of a signal.
When audio signals are attenuated, typically a decrease in
loudness
occurs.
However, attenuation need not always affect loudness --
for example, the attenuation of a
vibrato
will result in a lessening of the "depth" of the vibrato.
audio frequency
Any
frequency
audible to the human ear.
The range of audio frequencies is usually considered to lie
in the region between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz.
However, the specific range of audio frequencies varies
considerably from person to person -- varying especially
with respect to age.
See also
frequency.
auditory
Pertaining to the subjective experience of sound.
Used in contrast to
acoustical --
which pertains to the objective physics of a sound.
For example,
frequency
is a physical or acoustical property,
whereas
pitch
is a subjective or auditory property.
See
primary auditory phenomena.
auditory evoked potential
When an isolated sound is heard, millions of neurons in the
auditory cortex are activated.
The near simultaneous firing of large numbers of neurons
induces electrical potentials that can be measured with
electrodes on the scalp.
Auditory signals typically activate regions of the
temporal lobes -- located just above the ears.
Because the resulting
electroencephalographs
arise in response to a single sound, they are referred to as
auditory evoked potentials
or
auditory evoked responses.
See also
P3,
P300.
auditory induction
The subjective impression of a continuing sound,
even though the sound is entirely absent.
When a pure tone is alternated with broad-band noise,
the tone will appear as a continuous background tone
with the noise overlayed.
This phenomenon is analogous to the "picket fence"
illusion in vision.
That is, if two visual patterns are interleaved,
there is a tendency for one pattern to appear to be
an intermittent foreground (picket fence) and the
other pattern to appear as a continuous background
(what's behind the fence).
In ideal circumstances, auditory induction has been
measured for as long as 30 seconds.
That is, a listener has continued to perceive an absent
tone as persisting for half a minute.
See also
auditory streaming.
auditory streaming
The subjective sense of
connectedness
-- where two or more successive sounds appear to arise
from the same sound-generating source.
See also
stream,
primary auditory phenomena.
B
backward masking
See
masking.
barbiturates
See
depressants.
bel
The unit of level, named after Alexander Graham Bell.
The bel unit is itself rarely used --
the decibel (or one-tenth of a bel) being much more common.
The level (in bels) between two signals may be
determined by evaluating the logarithm (base-10) of the
ratio of two quantities proportional to power.
Berlyne's Theory of Optimum Complexity
A theory promoted by Daniel Berlyne that the pleasure evoked by
different kinds of stimuli is related to their degree of novelty.
According to Berlyne, those stimuli with the greatest hedonic value
(pleasure rating) tend toward some optimum degree of novelty
or optimum complexity.
The least pleasure is evoked when the stimulus is excessively
novel (or complex), and when there is insufficient novelty
(or complexity).
Efforts to test Berlyne's theory have had mixed results.
One musical test of Berlyne's theory was carried out by
Serafini and Huron (1989) where the tempo and harmonic
complexity was examined for 20 string quartet movements
by Haydn.
As the number of notes per second
(note-event complexity) decreases (as in the slower movements),
the harmonic complexity increases.
This implies that one type of complexity increases at the
expense of another type of complexity -- hence maintaining
some sort of overall optimum balance of stimulus complexity.
binaural
Pertaining to two ears, as in the binaural presentation
of musical stimuli to a listener.
Contrasts with monaural.
See also
monaural,
diotic,
dichotic.
monophonic,
stereophonic.
bradycardia
A momentary decrease in heart-rate followed by a recovery
of the heart-rate -- commonly evoked by some
stimulus.
Bradycardic changes of heart-rate are associated with interest
and attending to a stimulus.
See also
orienting response,
attention,
heart rate,
personality.
Compare
tachycardia.
Broca's aphasia
A neurological disorder which causes a complete or
partial loss of the ability to speak.
Also known as
expressive aphasia.
Contrast with
receptive aphasia.
See also
agnosia,
agraphia,
alexia,
amusia,
anomia,
aphasia,
aprosodia.
Burris-Meyer and Cardinell fatigue curve
Burris-Meyer and Cardinell carried out a series of
studies to determine how fatigue varies over a typical
workday.
They measured variations in worker output from hour to
hour and also determined what points in the workday
employees perceive as passing most quickly or most slowly.
They found that workers are typically most efficient
shortly after they begin work in the morning.
As the morning progresses, efficiency tends to fall,
reaching a low point shortly after mid-morning.
As lunch-time approaches, there is a gradual increase in
productivity.
Burris-Meyer and Cardinell hypothesized that this increase
may arise due to efforts to complete tasks before lunch.
Productivity in the second half of the day shows a similar
fall and then up-swing toward quitting time.
However, the overall efficiency in the afternoon tends to
be lower than for the morning.
In Muzak for workplaces,
the stimulus level of the music changes over the course
of the day to compensate for the
Burris-Meyer and Cardinell fatigue curves.
Specifically, the stimulus level of the music increases
during those parts of the day when efficiency is typically
lowest.
Butler's diads
An illustration of how the perception of
tonality
can be influenced by rearranging an inventory
of pitches.
The diads F-B followed by E-C evokes a strong
C major tonality.
Whereas the diads E-B followed by F-C tend to evoke
either an F major or E minor tonality.
Contrast with
Krumansl and Kessler key profiles.
C
caffeine
See
stimulants.
cannabis
A common non-prescription or "recreational" depressant drug
found in marijuana and hashish.
Cannabis is sometimes incorrectly classified as a hallucinogen.
However, it's capacity to induce halluncinations is low --
comparable to alcohol (Diaz, 1997; p.200).
See
depressants.
categorical perception
The tendency to perceive some stimuli as falling into discrete
categories rather than in terms of gradients.
In categorical perception, a perceptual "boundary" will be evident,
even though the pysical phenomenon is continuous.
One of the clearest examples of categorical perception may be found
in the perception of color.
Physics tells us that a rainbow exhibits a continuous gradient of
wavelengths from longer wavelengths (seen as red) to shorter
wavelengths (seen as blue).
Although the rainbow is physically continuous, our perceptual
experience is of discrete "bands" of color: red, yellow, green, etc.
In sound, categorical perception is evident in the perception
of phonemic speech categories, such as the distinction between /d/
and /t/.
In music, categorical perception is evident in the perception
of pitch, interval sizes, chord qualities, and rhythmic categories.
catharsis
The process of purging negative instincts.
An important concept in ancient Greeks theory of drama.
In viewing (say) portrayals of revenge, anger, or passion,
Aristotle suggested that the audience would be less apt to
act according to negative instincts.
That is, by seeing someone portray a character who
goes into a murderous rage, our own instincts to commit murder
are somehow purged.
In identifying with the character, we recognize the
emotions that may lead to a certain action.
But at the same time, we recognize that the action is wrong or inappropriate.
cephalic vasodilation
A general increased the diameter of the blood vessels in the brain
-- often as part of the
orienting response.
click
When the duration of a sound is less than a time threshold
(about 20 milliseconds) required for
pitch
recognition, the sound is heard as a click rather than a tone.
cent
Unit of
pitch
distance (or
interval)
corresponding to 1/100th of a
semitone.
A unit of measure introduced in the late 19th century by Alexander Ellis,
and frequently used in studies of non-Western music.
There are 1200 cents in an
octave).
One cent corresponds to a frequency ratio
of the 1200th root of 2.
closure
The experience of completion or finality.
Points of closure typically occur at the ends of works,
with lesser points of closure occuring at phrase boundaries.
In speech, the closure of spoken phrases is known to be
influenced by five factors:
(1) the presence of a silent pause at the phrase boundary,
(2) lengthening of the final stressed syllable,
(3) a drop in
amplitude,
(4) phrase-final descending pitch, and
(5) stress-rate slowing as the phrase boundary is approached.
See also
tonal closure,
tonality.
cochlea
The snail-shaped bone-encased fluid-filled organ of hearing.
Anatomically, the cochlea is regarded as the
inner ear.
The cochlea receives vibrations conveyed from the timpanic
membrane via the small bones of the
middle ear.
The last of these bones is connected to the oval window
of the cochlea.
Sound-induced vibrations are communicated to
fluid in a tube-shaped chamber that is coiled to make
2 and one-half rotations.
Motions of this fluid cause interior membranes
(the tectorial and
basilar membranes)
to be displaced.
Hair cells imbedded in these membranes are activated
and the resulting neural impulses are communicated
to the auditory nerve which exits from the cochlea.
The cochlea is roughly the size of the tip of one's little finger.
See also
outer ear,
middle ear,
inner ear,
pinna,
basilar membrane.
cognition
The processes of human or animal thought.
The acquisition, understanding, representation
and manipulation of knowledge.
See also
cognitive science,
sensation,
perception.
cognitive penetrability
A term coined by Pylyshyn to denote the degree
to which a cognitive process can be consciously
influenced.
A cognitive process is deemed to have low
cognitive pentrability if it is
unresponsive to expectation or conscious thought.
See also
introspection.
cognitive revolution
A common designation for the shift in popularity
during the 1960s away from
behaviorism
toward
cognitive psychology
and
cognitive science.
See
cognition.
cognitive science
The study of thought processes in animals (including humans)
and machines.
A broad field of cognitive research that
often emphasizes computational and mathematical modeling.
See
cognition.
cognitive style
A way of problem-solving or thinking.
A distinctive intellectual or perceptual/cognitive approach
that is characteristic or preferred by a given individual.
Different cognitive styles are thought to exist for
mental mathematical calculation.
In addition, it is thought that
different listening styles exist.
See also
listening mode.
colored hearing
A form of hearing where particular tones, chords,
or keys are associated with specific colors.
Colored hearing may arise due to strong
associations
arising from childhood co-exposure to particular
stimuli.
Such forms of colored hearing are often
associated with
absolute pitch.
Alternatively, colored hearing may arise due to
a neurological condition called
synesthesia.
complex tone
The term "complex tone" is used to identify tones consisting
of more than one pure frequency component.
Often the component frequencies
(called
partials)
of a complex tone are related
harmonically,
but many times they are not.
Occasionally complex tones will produce the sensation
of more than one pitch.
Whether a tone is recognized as being a single complex tone
or a group of simple sine tones is in part dependent on
the auditory context, as well as the experience,
ability and attitude of the listener.
Virtually all naturally occuring tones are complex.
Contrast with
sine tone.
compound melodic line
See
pseudo-polyphony.
consonance
The subjective experience of pleasantness, euphoniousness,
smoothness, fusion, or relaxedness evoked by sounds.
The subject of consonance and dissonance has a long history
and many theories have been advanced.
Some theories relate dissonance to cultural conditioning.
Other theories relate dissonance to musical context.
At least eleven classes of theories of consonance/dissonance can be defined.
These include:
(1) frequency ratio theory,
(2) harmonic relationship theory,
(3) temporal dissonance theory,
(4) difference tones theory,
(5) tonal fusion theory,
(6) tonotopic theory
(see
sensory dissonance),
(7) virtual pitch theory,
(8) expectation theory,
(9) interval category theory,
(10) absolute pitch category theory,
and
(11) stream incoherence theory.
Further information is available on these theories.
Most theories regard consonance as merely the absence of dissonance.
Other theories posit consonance and dissonance as distinct phenemona.
See also
dissonance,
sensory dissonance,
tonal fusion.
contralateral
The anatomical arrangement by which some nerves
originating on one side of the body are connected
to the cerebral hemisphere on the opposite side of the body.
For example, nerves which connect the left ear
(left cochlea) to the right hemisphere of the brain
are said to be contralaterally connected.
Contrasts with
ipsilateral.
convergent thinking
Deliberate thinking intended to
solve some problem or address some task.
converging evidence
The view that we can be most confident of our knowledge when,
no matter how we look at a phenomenon, the same answer is supported.
cortex
Anatomical term designating
the convoluted or wrinkled surface region of the brain
(from the Latin word for the "bark" of a tree).
A living brain has a light red-brown color;
however, after death the color changes to gray.
This color continues until a depth of about
an eighth of an inch -- where it changes to white.
The surface (historically called "gray matter")
constitutes the cerebral cortex.
The gray matter coincides with a large mass of nerve
cell bodies, while the underlying "white matter"
coincides with long axon fibers emanating from the
cell bodies in the gray matter.
In evolutionary terms, the cortex is the most
recent addition to human brains.
Much of the higher-level mental functioning of the
brain has been traced to cortical locations.
The cortex is divided into left and right
cerebral hemispheres.
Four subdivisions or
lobes
can be identified in each hemisphere:
the
frontal,
temporal,
parietal
and
occipital
lobes.
The neural activity of the cortex can be
measured using techniques such as
electroencephalography.
See also
subcortical.
cortisol
A hormone whose presence is associated with stress.
See also
anxiety,
Thayer's model of moods.
critical band
A frequency region within which tones interact.
There are many forms of such interaction,
but the most common is
masking
where the sounds tend to obscure each other.
A common way to define the critical band is the
smallest distance beyond which masking no longer occurs.
This distance corresponds to roughly 1 millimeter
distance along the
basilar membrane
of the
cochlea.
In musical terms, critical bands are roughly a minor third in size
in the vicinity of middle C and above.
In log frequency terms, critical bands get larger as the register
descends below middle C.
The following notation indicates the approximate size of critical
bands according to tessitura.
It is important to understand that the
notated pitches represent
pure tones
rather than
complex tones.
As pure tones, each tone activates a region of the basilar
membrane roughly one millimeter distant from the neighboring tones.
From Huron (2001).
crowding perceptions
Retailers typically try to reduce the amount of
physical space required for their business
by moving the aisles closer together and raising
the heights of the shelves.
However, these actions cause consumers to feel
unduly crowded.
Three factors have been identified as influencing the
perceptions of crowding in retail environments.
These include (1) aisle width and height,
(2) temperature, and (3) noise level.
An environment is perceived to be crowded when the aisles
are tall and close together, when the temperature is high,
and when there is a lot of noise present.
Marketing researchers have found that music provides
a useful means for masking speech and footfall sounds
that customer's associate with crowding.
See
masking,
functional music.
cycle
The action of a vibrating system such that its pattern of change
passes through a complete turn of events.
The elapsed time for the completion of one cycle
is called the
period.
The number of cycles occuring in one second is called the
frequency.
cycles per second
The number of complete repetitions or occurrences in one second.
See
hertz,
see also
frequency,
cycle,
Vol. 23, No. 50 - Magazine - Full view
But fans say Jerry Lee, a boxer named for rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis, is no sideshow act. He's a true musical genius, insists local pop-music writer Dietrich 'Magazine - Full view
Piano plunderer, Jerry Lee Lewis has 'fessed up that he once took a nude motorcycle spin with long-time buddy, Elvis Presley.Magazine - Full view
Dennis Quaid, right, with Jerry Lee Lewis the birdbrained potentate.
Vol. 15, No. 48 - Magazine - Full view
