Week 14: Evolution

Language and music are two very specific human traits/qualities. The ability to speak fluently and to attach meaning to music clearly separates humans from animals. Although animals use music/song-like sounds for mating and warnings, there is no evidence that they are able to attach any meaning to their sounds. Language and music can be referred to as being “evolved” in human lineage. But the debate between “evolution” and “frill”, still pursues.

Language and Natural selection is viewed as a social construct. Some believe that language evolved to provide humans with a medium for expression and communication i.e. individual cognition=cultural cognition. Several arguments support the view of language and natural selection:
1) Babbling - occurs in all babies (across cultures, deaf/hearing) around 7 months. Evidence of selection, not imitation.
2) Human vocal tract – compared to animals, larynx sits lower, doesn’t connect with nasal passage
3) Vocal learning – producing vocal signals based on auditory experience (unique to humans). Neural substrates of vocal learning are not well understood
4) Speech perception of sound structures – 6 month old infants learn vowel sounds but soon loose sensitivity to phonetic contrasts in other languages.
5) Critical periods – for language, it is suggested that this ends at puberty
6) Commonalities in spoken and signed language – sign/spoken use same left brain i.e. can make use of different modalities
7) Robustness of language acquisition- even with minimal input.
8) Learning predispositions – e.g. Nicaraguan system of sign language
9) Gene mutation – when FOXP2 gene is damaged, speech and language issues pursue.

Music and Natural selection
Regardless of its lack of survival value, it has persisted. Evidence of it’s natural selection include:
1) Adaptionist hypothesis – sexual selection (Miller, peak in musical interests at adolescence), mental and social development (Cross), social cohesion
2) Music and language contain similar elements of natural selection (critical periods, robustness, babbling)
3) Infant studies – “music as adaption” view suggests we are born musical. Experiments with perceptual predispositions (chicks and quails) and innate learning preferences see findings on infant research p. 379
4) Genes and music – absolute pitch, tone-deafness, genes (FOXP2)
5) Similarities between man and animal – AP, ability to discriminate between consonance and dissonance, tonality (octave equivalence).

Beat-based rhythm processing
- Speech rhythm and beat-based rhythm share same metrical construction of stresses although speech rhythm does not have a regular pulse.
- Synchronization is based on temporal anticipation (tap slightly ahead of beat)
1) Development studies are used to study innateness of beat-based rhythm and perceptual studies aid in determining periodic temporal expectancies form musical stimuli
2) Synchronized movement to a beat is human specific (animals can sync with each other). Basal ganglia responsible for beat perception Having the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning is a necessary prerequisite for the ability to synchronize with an auditory beat.

A view poignant points:
Music is universal because it is universally valued
Human traits are researched using null hypothesis.
Musical aptitude appears to follow a path of natural selection e.g. individuals with selective amusia, and genetically passed on tone deafness.
Natural selection in music and language is still debated

Week 13: Global Practices

I find the global practices of music exceptionally interesting. Although there is no globalized system/curriculum for learning music, there still seems to be an element of uniformity amongst different cultures and countries whether that refers to curriculum or simple enculturation. The newest field to research concepts like this is, ‘anthropology of children’ and ‘ethnomusicology of children’ (Patricia Sheehan Campbell-a very familiar name in world music). A brief summary of various musical pedagogies follows:

Ireland
-Learned by ear
-Social learning process of listening or playing
-Musical elders (role models)
-Family music-making and occasion music
-Pennywhistles are an entry-point instrument
-Government funded organizations to promote Irish traditional music, dance, and language

Japan
-Westernized since 1900’s (western instruments, ensembles)
-Basic musical skill encouraged over traditional Japanese traditions (Shoka – western song melodies sung to Japanese texts)
-Curricular shift beginning to encourage Japanese musical culture
-Modeling techniques through instruction (verbal instruction is rare)
-Rote, notation, and listening

Philippines
-European and American pedagogies
-Maestro system
-Aural and kinetic references (can sing by heart and read notation)
-Improvisation
-Traditional instruments taught by rote and intense instruction

Thailand
-Thai folk songs and games taught in piphat house (master, teaching by rote), community institutes (tablature, solfege, written notation, numerical notation), and Thai music clubs (traditional instruments)
-Wai kru (show of respect) used in all walks of life especially music

West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia)
-Song, dance, and singing games begin at birth and are intertwined with work and play
-Include tradition and creative change
-Call-and-response
-Music is fundamental to ceremonies and initiations

East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia
-Ngoma (combination of singing, dancing, instrumentalists). Used in education, ceremonies, work, therapy, communication, social awareness
-Sex-based stereotyping

North American First Nations
-Music used to pass on traditions, history by parents to children

Week 13: Musical Development, Chapter 6.1

Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget’s idea of stages is no longer considered accurate by most experts. The socio-cultural perspective is considered more appropriate, and this perspective began with Vygotsky. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the area where a learner can acquire new skills or knowledge with the help (socialization) of a more advanced learner.

Post-Piaget and Vygotsky. There are five main new ideas in recent socio-cultural literature regarding developmental theories: (1) speed of processing [e.g. Case and Halford), (2) modularity [development is more domain-specific than previously thought], (3) guided participation [similar to ZPD, but with a greater emphasis on child-centered socialization instead of adult-centered socialization directed toward the child], (4) communities of practice [musical ensembles are good examples], and (5) legitimate peripheral participation [for example, playing in a pop band after school, where the learning is more informal, and it must occur in groups].
Cultural historical activity theory. Vygotsky included three interdependent elements in learning: subject, object and domain. Engestrom added three additional elements: community, rules and division of labor.

Is musical development domain specific? The authors largely rely on Howard Gardner and related theorists in thinking that music is a specific domain, yet is interdependent with other domains and general cognitive processing. Differences in expert and normative development are noted.

Theoretical models of musical development. Swanwick and Tillman’s spiral model, Serafine’s developmental view of ‘music as cognition,’ and the symbol system approach mainly associated with Howard Gardner. Edwin Gordon is mentioned. Some other theorists are briefly discussed. This section of this chapter was probably the weakest, and the majority of topics discussed were covered more thoroughly in prior readings for this course.

Week 13: Music Education, Ch. 6.2

This chapter gives a very broad overview of music education. Particular emphasis is placed on music education in the United Kingdom, though not exclusively so. The chart on p. 340 is helpful in summarizing formal/informal and statutory/elective music education. Citing research on music education in 15 countries, the authors state that there is a striking diversity in aims and approaches to music education in various countries, citing examples such as China (with the strong influence of Confucian philosophy and the emphasis on music as a tool for educating the child in a holistic way). The authors cite differences in Eastern versus Western approaches to music education several times, mainly emphasizing that Eastern countries tend to be teacher-oriented and aimed at teaching the child to be moral and well-balanced while Western countries tend to emphasize creativity and uses a more student-oriented report. The authors also note, however, that these changes are becoming less pronounced.
On p. 347, there is a helpful Venn diagram showing potential outcomes of music education and their overlaps: musical-artistic, social-cultural, and personal. The authors then review teacher and student agendas for music education, noting that teachers often do not engage students in the type of musical activities that they would prefer (e.g. the use of pop music in the classroom). The use of pop music is discussed, and the authors seem to implicitly convey the sense that pop music should be utilized more by music teachers.

Week 14: Functional Organization and Plasticity of Auditory Complex, Ch. 23; J. P. Rauschecker

This chapter gives a very general overview of brain plasticity. The prior chapters we have read regarding brain plasticity went into more detail. However, there are a few important contributions of this chapter that have not yet been covered elsewhere. In particular, the plasticity of the brain resulting from blind individuals (and animals) is discussed. In blind individuals, the sense of hearing is often for finely tuned. In fact, using functional brain imaging, it has been shown that the part of the brain usually used for visual processing can be used instead for auditory processing in blind people. This brain plasticity is exemplified by the greater precision of blind people in localizing sounds.

'Anterior STG [superior temporal gyrus] projects to orbitofrontal cortex, which plays a role in working memory for objects.’ Also, the anterior STG and orbito-frontal cortex ‘are responsible for the processing of complex auditory “images,” patterns, or objects… they should also be the shorage houses of musical memories’ because of a fundamental tenant of the Hebbian model of memory, which says that memories are stored where they are processed. Conductors also show greater precision in the localization of sound; this is an example of non-blind people who have been able to develop functional brain plasticity. Age is also an important factor in brain plasticity, as the brain tends to become less plastic as we age.

Music industry, music advertising, and music in commercial environments

Music Industry

The majority of people’s musical preferences are heavily influenced by their exposure to specific styles of music. The multi-million dollar music industry of record companies dating back to Tin Pan Alley and the like, are a large reason for this. Today, record companies are often a conglomeration of instrument manufacturers, film studios, and retailers that allow for the cross-promotion of specific styles of music that dominate the sound waves and dictate music buying behavior. Often, creativity is limited by a lack of innovation and diversity directly related to the financial gains of huge sales of a small number of albums.

Superstardom (attained by promotional campaigns or reliance on existing stardom) is the result of and promotion of record company’s musical choices. An excellent example of disproportionate sales compared to ability i.e. an artist’s talent is not necessarily indicative of their sales and visa versa and talent is not always a deciding factor in consumer spending. Consumers are driven by familiarity with an artist, irrespective of their talent.

Research

-Music consumption (Lacher & Mizerski, 1994) shows that consumer’s need to re-experience music is the strongest predictor of whether an album will be purchased (affective and experiential response also included in this research).

-Product life-cycles of popular songs (Meenaghan & Turnball, 1981) follow similar patterns (pre-release, buzz creation, pre-threshold, commercial life, final decline) and predictors such as a song’s initial chart entry often determines its highest position.

-Positive correlations between performance of artists and their number of years since #1 chart were positively related to amount of space allocated in msuic encyclopedias (North & Hargreaves, 1995).

-Pricing strategies and online music purchasing (delay of 4 seconds affects online purchases)

-Music piracy (Jones & Lenhart), disproportionately male, experienced internet users, lower income, educational groups

-Radio programming (Ahlkvist & Faulkner, 2002) determined by subjective repertoire of DJ’s, objective repertoire of market research, populist repertoire, and synergistic repertoire of record companies.

Music and advertising

Music heavily influences consumption habits and is used in commercials to attract attention, carry a message, create emotion, acts as a mnemonic cue. The impact of music in commercials is based on:

1) Classical condition – (Gorn, 1982) associate liked music with a product to produce same effect

2) Elaboration likelihood – ELM (elaboration likelihood Model). There are two routes to persuasion, central (considering information about product) and peripheral (associating product with positive/negative cues-conditioning method)

3) Sonic branding (auditory equivalent of a visual company logo)

4) Music fit – music that fits with the target audience who are actively processing the messages in advertising, corresponds with consumers perceptions

Music in commercial environments

Elevator music (piped music, muzak)

Research

-The speed of consumer activity (Smith & Curnow, 1966). Loud music discouraged people to stay in store long. (Milliman, 1982) tempo of music influences speed of shopping. The same research was conducted on restaurants, with similar outcomes.

-Approach and avoidance behavior research (Mehrabia & Russell, 1974). Responses to an environment involving pleasure increase the likelihood of approach behavior.

-‘Knowledge activation effects’ research seeks to establish the associations people make with specific styles/pieces with the intent of influencing atmosphere and purchasing (specific atmospheric music establishes consumers perception of store e.g. playing French music to promote French wine, classical music in expensive jewelery store)(North, Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 2000).

-Time perception and waiting time. Fast music leads to longer time estimates, requires more processing . “Time flies when you’re having fun” and “Pollyanna principle” (pleasant information is processed and recalled faster) (Mantel, 1989)

-workplace morale and productivity of workers for boring/repetitive tasks

-Physical work and exercise (synchronous), office noise, and driving

Week 12: Effects of problem music on thoughts and behaviors

Each topic is presented according to correlation studies, experimental studies and caveats in the existing research. The problem of demand characteristics with experimental designs is noted. ‘Cognitive priming theory,’ which states that one stimulus can ‘prime’ the mind by activating a ‘schema’ – or cluster of associated variables, as well as classical and operant conditioning, are discussed.
4.3.1 Delinquency and criminality: ‘…evidence indicates that there is some form of relationship between problem music and delinquent/criminal thoughts and behaviors’ (p.174), though there is no proof of a causal relationship
4.3.2 Illegal drugs: ‘for the time being we can conclude that there is a clear link between musical subcultures and use of illegal drugs, particularly within heavy metal and dance music subcultures,’ (p. 181); ecstasy has a very strong link with dance music subculture
4.3.3 Permissive sexual attitudes: ‘it seems that a relationship exists between music and permissive sexual attitudes, but this is not exclusive to all consumers of solely problem music’ (p. 186)
4.3.4 Sexual and racial discrimination: ‘in short, although the evidence indicates a clear relationship between problem music and anti-female attitudes, it could be argued that the effect is stronger amount vulnerable groups and that the broader cultural perception of a particular musical style can cause it to have an influence just as much as the specifics of the song or video in question: if so then any piece of music could potentially lead to anti-female attitudes. Nonetheless, of all the possible effects of music considered in this chapter, the link between problem music and sexism appears to be the one supported most by the available evidence’ (p. 190). ‘In short, it is not clear yet whether there is an association between exposure to music videos and eating disorders…’ (p. 191). Racism can be prompted through a cognitive priming effect.
4.3.5 Self-harm and suicide: ‘any link between problem music and suicide may be no stronger than the link between country and suicide’ (p. 200).
4.3.6 (Mis)Interpretation of lyrics: there is little (if any) basis for concluding that ‘backwards masking’ has any effect. Many people do not understand the lyrics they hear well, even when played normally (in terms of comprehension).

Week 12: Does exposure to music have beneficial side effects?

The often-reported Mozart effect has little actual evidence, and what evidence does exist is questionable and lacks significant ecological validity. Many of the effects reported in research supporting the Mozart effect can be explained simply in terms of mood or arousal levels, not music-related effects per se. However, the effect of music lessons (rather than passive listening, as in the Mozart effect), remains an ‘open question.’ Some studies have supported a correlation between music lessons and cognitive development in other domains; however, conclusive evidence is definitely lacking. Nonetheless, these studies only suggest that music per se may not be the cause of improvement in other domains, but other variables included in music lessons (such as time spent with an adult music instructor, for example), may indeed have a positive effect across various domains.

Week 11: Meaning

Musical meaning has no consensus amongst philosophers of aesthetics.
Kivy (2002) – rejects the concept of ‘musical meaning’, category error. ‘Meaning’ is reserved for linguistics. Music has significance, logic, and expresses emotion.
VS
Jan-Jacques Nattiez – ‘meaning’ exists when it evokes another thought other than specific the object/event. Relational process.

Difficulty of musical translation - Impossible to assign a universal set of meanings to music. Unlike language, music cannot be translated without losing its meaning (Beethoven chamber piece translated to Javanese Gamelan ensemble). Meaning is directly associated with instrumentation, timbre, scale.
Cross-cultural appreciation of music (without translation)– purely sensual, contains familiar elements (sonic logic). Native listening remains different to cross-cultural listening.

Types of musical meaning:
1. Structural interconnection of musical elements – Expectations are important in creating meaning. “Gap-fill” (Meyer) is the expectation of successive pitches of a phrase. Expectations based on Gestalt properties and previous knowledge.
Embodied meaning / intramusical meaning
Approaches to musical aesthetics are either Absolutist (structure, not expression) or formalist (Hanslick-emotion is an extramusical issue)
2. The expression of emotion – expression of emotion by music (mood of music) vs. experience of emotion by listener (emotional reaction). Possible to identify the mood of the music without experiencing the emotion of the mood.
Cues affect perception of music e.g. tempo, pitch, timbre
3. The experience of emotion – Music can be used to regulate mood but does music evoke real everyday emotion, only an affective response, or emotions outside of everyday (Krumhansl study – physiological reactions and emotional reactions- aligned).
Chills are associated with violation of expectant harmonies (Sloboda) – not an everyday emotion (Zatorre identified region in brain responsible. Same as reward and motivation – dorsal midbrain)
4. Motion – tendency to synchronize with beat
5. Tone painting – environmental sounds, animal sounds, human sounds through music e.g. sighing
6. Musical topics – e.g. leitmotifs. Topics like dance forms, hunt music, pastoral.
7. Social associations – e.g. consumer behavior, ethnic associations.
8. Imagery and Narrative –
9. Association with life experience – recall of emotion from another time
10. Creating or transforming the self – music used for establishing/changing identity and use in trance.
11. Musical structure and cultural concepts – (may be unique to music)

Music and Semantics - how words reflect reality (like Kivy’s view on ‘musical meaning)
-Specific semantic contents is harder to establish that semantic concepts in music, unlike language.
-Leitmotifs (referential qualities)
-N400 tests (event-related potential of a word)

Music and Pragmatics – how listeners add contextual information to sentences and draw inferences about what is said
- Kehler’s theory (2002) that 3 broad types of connections exist between listener and utterances viz. resemblance (reasoning, categorizing events, corresponding between events), cause-effect (drawing a path of implications between events), and contiguity (understanding that events happen in a specific order).
- coherence between segments
-right hemisphere


Neural locations
Pleasantness vs. unpleasantness based on changing dissonances = righ hemisphere (right parahippocampal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex)
Music expressing joy, happiness, sadness, fear = asymmetries between hemispheres (greater left frontal activity for positive emotions, greater right frontal activity for negative emotions).

Week 11: The Perception of Emotion in Music ; Schubert & McPherson

The Perception of Emotion in Music

The main point of this chapter is about how children ‘perceive emotion in music rather than the emotion a child experiences in response to music’ (p. 194).

• Referentialism (Meyer) – the meaning in music comes from direct associations with the situations, mood and so forth in the music: something outside the music is connected and associated with the music. (acculturation, conscious or unconscious exposure)
• Absolutism (Meyer) – the meaning in music comes from within the structure of the music itself, without any need to make references to something outside the music.


‘Basic emotions’ include happiness, sadness, anger, joy, surprise and fear
‘Secondary emotions’ include embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy and pride (these are more culturally specific)

Infants ‘are born with basic kinds of mechanisms that enable them to interpret the emotional meaning of sounds in the environment, and, in particular, from their caregiver’ (p. 199).

The chart on p. 202 succulently describes the authors’ approach to emotions for 0-18+ years of age. ‘Schematic’ is similar to Meyer’s ‘absolutism,’ and ‘veridical’ is similar to Meyer’s ‘referentialism.’ The authors state that people oscillate between these two approaches throughout their childhood and adolescence.

The authors note the importance of exposing children to new musical styles during developmental periods where schematic connections dominate, as children will be more open to hearing new music. One such opportune period is from about 8-12 years old (see the chart on p. 202).

This is a relatively simple, straightforward chapter with good information for a DEVELOPMENTAL approach to the perception of emotion in music.

Week 11: Processing Emotions Induced by Music; Trainor & Schmidt

In music, ‘meaning appears to arise largely through the unfolding of sounds over time in relation to musical expectations,’ (p. 310) indicating that music is a relatively ‘closed-system.’ Acoustical cues for emotion exist, including structural (included in the musical ‘score’) and performance characteristics (such as performer interpretation).

Philosophers: (1) Hanslick: no relationship between music appreciation and emotion; (2) Langer: ‘music bears some relation to emotion in that the rise and fall of tension in music, the interplay between uncertainty and resolution, mimics the time course of emotional experience… in this view, music does not express emotion, but we understand music through its similarity to emotional dynamics’ (p. 311); and (3) Meyer: music directly expresses emotions.

Emotions can be classified in a number of ways, but one way is through two main dimensions of emotion: valence (negative to positive), and intensity (low to high), leading to four poles of emotion. Positive emotions are in general correlated with approach behaviors and negative emotions are correlated with withdraw behaviors (which is logical in terms of social function and emotional purpose).

Music can directly elicit emotion; this is evidenced by the physiological changes that music can induce (such as respiratory rate, heart rate, skin conductivity, etc.). This means that phylo-genetically older parts of the nervous system are activated by music. This is significant: music is not merely about emotions.

Emotional centers of the brain include the amygdale, the hypothalamus and the basal forebrain – a relatively small number of brain sites. Emotion is also processed in frontal lobes. Music also seems to activate frontal lobes, including cortical systems associated with emotions. ‘Despite the fact that music does not appear to have an obvious survival value for modern adults, research indicates that listening to music does activate autonomic, subcortical, and cortical systems in a manner similar to other to other emotional stimuli’ (p. 310).

The authors ‘propose that music may be so intimately connected with emotional systems because caregivers use music to communicate emotionally with their infants before they are able to understand language’ (p. 310).

Methods of Study: brain lesion studies, PET studies, and EEG. EEG is the main method used in the research presented. Using EEG, the authors found that music does ‘activate the same cortical, subcortical, and autonomic circuits as other emotions’ (p. 320). The authors hypothesize that the use of singing – both lullaby and playsong style – play a role in emotional communication prior to infant language development, and that this connection between music and emotion is retained in our adult life, giving music its emotional meaning to humans (also, the authors also note that young infants can identify emotions in music from a young age).

EEG patterns of activation in frontal region at rest can be used to indicate personality types (in terms of positive affect, ability to regulate negative effect – leading to depression, anxiety, etc.). By measuring baseline EEG patterns in the frontal region, the authors studied the effect of music (using excerpts which were screened to express the four main emotions of the valence/intensity model: fear, joy, happy and sad). Music activated the same emotional EEG patterns that non-musical emotions activate, implying shared neural substrates of musical and non-musical emotion. Interestingly, adults show frontal asymmetries related to valence (whether this is true is infants is still unknown due to previous methodological issues – like the inability of expecting the same level of musical listening sensitivity between infants and adults, though plausible methodologies have now been identified). However, such frontal asymmetries are not seen for intensity.

Week 10: Neural Specializations for Tonal Processing; Zatorre

I found this chapter very interesting and therefore decided to do a slightly more in-depth summary that I would otherwise. The author’s abstract is good for a briefer summary.

Zatorre contends that music is a biological, not (solely) cultural, phenomenon; as such, he recognizes the importance of identifying dedicated (i.e. not shared) neural substrates for the processing of music. Investigating the neural map of music in the brain will provide much information about brain processing in general. Noting that language and music (though having some distinct neural substrates, most likely) are two ubiquitously human stimuli, Zatorre demonstrates the importance of understanding the biological foundations of both. Studies of brain-lesion patients (largely from cerebral-vascular brain injuries, such as those that may occur as a result of stroke) and studies of brain imaging techniques support the biological basis for music in humans.

This chapter looks specifically at ‘aspects of tonal processing and their neural substrates.’ The functional specialization of neural systems is accepts in other domains, but music remains somewhat vague in the research field of neural systems – particularly dedicated ones. Zatorre divides his paper by looking first at ‘low-level’ aspects of pitch processing, like pitch discrimination (under the heading ‘basic aspects of pitch processing’), then looks at higher-order aspects such as pitch patterns (under the heading ‘processing of pitch patterns’); ‘hemispheric differences in spectral processing’ and ‘anatomical considerations’ complete Zatorre’s presentation. Salient points from each section are presented below.

BASIC ASPECTS OF PITCH PROCESSING
• The midbrain or thalamus might be sufficient for pitch discrimination, as shown by studies of animals that have bilateral destruction of the auditory cortical areas yet retain the ability to process simple pitch discrimination.
• Left temporal lobe lesions can leave one quite unimpaired in regards to pitch discrimination and pitch-direction (higher and lower levels of processing, respectively)
• Right temporal lobe lesions that do NOT include Heschl’s gyrus also leave one quite unimpaired in regards to pitch discrimination and pitch-direction
• Right temporal lobe lesions that DO include Heschl’s gyrus leave one relatively unimpaired on pitch discrimination (lower level processing), but greatly impairs the ability to discriminate pitch-direction (higher level processing)
• This can be taken to mean that organizing sounds according to their pitch in some way requires the primary auditory area in Heschl’s gyrus in the right temporal lobe
• These findings are consistent with other research where patients with RTL lesions extending into HG had difficulty with missing fundamental pitch discrimination
• Brain imaging studies seem to be in agreement with these findings (based on cerebral blood flow to HG)

PROCESSING OF PITCH PATTERNS
• Here working memory is involved
• Zatorre notes that the hemispheric differences presented in this chapter are likely relative rather than absolute
• Duetsch has found that memory for tones is relatively specific, because the memory is not disrupted by other sounds but only other tones.
• Patients with excision of the right temporal lobe have more difficulty with tonal memory, as non-tone auditory interference worsens performance on tonal memory tests
• The right superior temporal gyrus, anterior to the primary auditory cortex, shows increased cerebral blood flow during active processing of novel melodies (more so than the left hemisphere), supporting the claim that neural networks within the right SECONDARY auditory cortices are critical for processing the perception of tonal information
• P. 240 ‘right interior lateral frontal areas are important for maintenance of tonal information, whereas dorsolateral frontal areas are required for higher-level functions such as monitoring the contents of working memory’
• Studies from musical imagery brain imaging support this behavioral evidence

HEMISPHERIC DIFFERENCES IN SPECTRAL PROCESSING
• ‘The hypothesis is that there may be a tradeoff in processing in temporal and spectral domains, and that auditory cortical systems in the two hemispheres have evolved a complementary specialization, with the left having better temporal resolution, and the right better spectral resolution’ (p. 241)

ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS

• The anatomy in the left and right auditory cortical areas may be different: the left having more myelination (the sheath which quickens and protects information traveling along the neuron) and larger neuron composition, with more interconnectedness; the right may have thinner myelination and smaller neuronal composition with less interconnectedness. These findings would correspond with temporal processing as occurring primarily in the left auditory cortical area and spectral processing as occurring primarily in the right auditory cortical area for obvious reasons (less interconnectedness leads to greater differentiation in tone, more myelination leading to faster processing of temporal information, etc.)
• The information in the above bullet may represent an evolutionary adaptation originally geared toward improving the processing of speech

Week 10: Brain Specialization for Music

Brain specialization for music suggests that music may have biological roots i.e. brain has neural networks dedicated specifically to the processing music and is unresponsive to nonmusical input (localization in right temporal lobe/gyros). This suggests that music pertains more to biology than to culture.

Revealed in three conditions:

1. Acquired disorders - e.g. music agnosia, unable to recognize hummed tune but will recognize lyrics for the tune

2. Congenital disorders – e.g. music savant syndrome (highly musical with contradicting social/intellectual impairment VS. congenital amusics (new learning disability, domain specific, born with normal social abilities but inability develop normal musical skills)

3. Brain stimulation – e.g. musicogenic epilepsy, epileptic with music as the trigger. Abnormalities in electrical activity in temporal lobes, predominantly the right.

Week 10: Music and Health

Music therapy use 4 main teatments models, either psychosocial or curative approaches

1. Medical model – (physiological) impact of music on heart rate, breathing. Instantaneous responses often to the detriment of long-term effects.

2. Psychoanalysis – (unconscious) emphasize the symbolic nature of a clients musical behavior during a session i.e. overt behaviors are interpreted as indicative of internal states

3. Behavioral therapy – Treats physcial symptoms rather than unobservable/psychological disorders e.g. reinforcements of desired behavior through reward/token system, contingent music listening.

4. Humanistic psychology –(conscious process) self-actualisation, making most of one’s potential, individual differences, freedom of choice, self-esteem, emphaise relationships, feelings.

Standley's meta-analysis (1995) of 55 studies on effects of music on patients with medical and dental disorders – used to convince medical field of benefit of music therapy. Highlighted 7 means of employing music in medical and dental settings

1. Passive music listening-reduce pain and anxiety, enhance anaesthesia effects

2. Active music listening-structured exercise to reduce pain in movement or structure breathing for childbirth

3. Music and counseling techniques-used for terminal, serious illness to provide families opportunity to reminisce, closure, disuss, interpersonal relationships

4. Music and development or educational objectives-structured learning for children under long-term hospitalization

5. Music and stimulation-e.g comatose, brain damaged, premature babies. Preferred music is played in conjunction with attempts to stimulate other senses

6. Music and biofeedback-structure physiological responses to increase awareness, self-control. Music used as reward for desired response

7. Music and group activity

Music and pain relief/stress relief

1960’s Gate control theory- experiencing pain is mediated by the mind, not attributable to passive reception by the brain of pain messages from other arts of the body

AND

music therpists have determined that the intensity and quality of pain can be mediated by expectation, suggestion, attention distractors (measured by cortisol levels)

The impact of music on stress can also aid in stronger immune system (lower stress, improved immune system) and use of lullabies on premature babies.

Making Music and Making Sense Through Music - Reinhard Kopiez

It would be hard to imagine a world without the existence of music as a form of communication, a means of conveying meaning, or an implicit or explicit mode of expression. Bolton & Newmn’s ‘Tic-toc effect’ provides simple evidence that even the non-musical mans desires to find meaning in music. However, our search for meaning in music is still incomplete.

This chapter considers the musical message from the performers perspective i.e. how they develop their plan for the performance of a piece. Performance research has delved into imaginary narration, holistic and serial practice approaches, timing and note duration (Palmer, 1989, parameter theory). Investigating musical expression is taken from either an emotional or structural expression perspective. The strong relationship between compositional structure and musical expression is supported by Langer (1953) with the assumption of isomorphism. The performers interpretive intent is distinguished by elements of timing in this context. Irrational components of expressive perfromance such as movement and emotion are yet to be investigated.

The rule-based systems of musical expression have been used to analyse the implementation of expression marks. However, even these are subject to the debate of uniformity and individualism in music and are all subject to the listener’s expectancies. Variations of accoustical and expressive cues are commonly used in expressivity and should be nurtured from a young age. Their associations with basic moods have also been researched e.g. ‘happy’ and ‘angry’ associated with faster tempo which directly influence the character of the piece (individuality of the piece and expressiveness of the performance).

Cross cultural studies of emotional response have attempted to shed light on the concept of music as a universal language, to no/little avail. Elements such us synchronicity, expectancies, psychoenergetic experiences all play an undeniable role in music, from any culture. Meyer makes an interesting statement “Music in a style with which we are totally unfamiliar is meaningles”.

Composition and Improvisation

I have stepped outside of the text for this summary….

In commenting on creativity, Bennett Reimer says ‘the difference is not in kind, only in degree’ (2003). Contrasted with Gardner’s distinction (persons perfecting a domain – e.g. Mozart, those that create new domains e.g. Freud, those that influence others e.g. Ghandi, those who reflect e.g. Virgina Woolf), this makes for a thought-provoking contrast. In terms of education in music, improvisation and composition have dominated the creative process of learning music. The early 1960’s saw a plethora of creative approaches to music education to encourage and enhance creativity in young children. These included the ‘Young Composers Project’ and ‘Manhatannville Music Curriculum Project’. Many of these approaches extended to the public schools and significantly influenced the 1994 ‘National Standards for Music Education’ that includes composing and arranging.

Creativity/generative process for improvisation and compositions are very similar i.e. specific stages that are refined. Research has distinguished specific stages of imitation and composition in young learners and generally, the consensus is that 10-years are required to gain the knowledge and skills to acquire high levels of performance. (not overlooking the entrepreneurial perspective of learning by modeling, experimenting, and feedback)

Model for compositions (Wallas, 1926)

Preparation

Incubation

Intimation

Illumination

Verification

(include sketching/trial-and-error process, Sloboda)

Musical Literacy

This chapter is a good review of literature on musical literacy. The chapter focuses on staff notation, as the authors claim that the other variables related to musical literacy are covered elsewhere.

In various permutations, the authors argue that too early of an exposure to staff notation in one’s music education can be harmful by distracting one from attending to other areas such as listening to the sounds one produces. The authors argue in favor of an ‘eye-audiation-play’ process instead of a ‘eye-play’ process, meaning that one needs to be able to hear in his or her head the music before they press the keys of their instrument. Developing aural memory is emphasized in such a method, and creativity is not stifled. Allowing learners to produce their own notation before introducing staff notation can be helpful for allowing the learner to understand why staff notation is used. The authors consider it best if early pieces emphasize reading staff notation of pieces that the learn already knows by rote, giving them the ability to focus on eye-hand coordination while retaining the inner hearing of the already familiar music.

Different ways in which people read staff notation are discussed, including reading note-by-note or reading by phrase, etc.

Week 9: Experimental Aesthetics

I. ‘The field of experimental aesthetics attempts to produce laws governing responses to all art forms.’ (Influenced by zeitgeist of hehaviorism)
II. Gustav Fechner’s Vorschule der Aesthetik is arguably the 2nd oldest topic in experimental psychology
III. Fechner, Plato, and Aristotle all agreed on the idea of an ‘aesthetic mean,’ meaning that beauty is found in non-extremes
IV. Theses ideas matured with work of Daniel Berlyne, who adopted a psychobiological approach in ‘the new experimental aesthetics’ (Berlyne, 1971, 1972, 1974).
V. Berlyne ‘characterized research within this approach as possessing one or more of the following features:
a. It concentrates on collative properties of stimulus patterns. (Collative properties are ‘structural’ or ‘formal’ properties, such as variations along familiar-novel, simple-complex, etc.)
b. It concentrates on motivational questions.
c. It studies nonverbal behavior as well as verbally expressed judgements.
d. It strives to establish links between aesthetic phenomena and other psychological phenomena. (Seeks to also shed light on human psychology in general)
VI. Berlyne’s approach is based on ‘arousal potential,’ that is, the amount of activity that artistic stimuli produce in the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
VII. There is an inverted U relationship between preference and stimulus arousal potential.
VIII. Berlyne stated that the variable that mediate arousal potential fall into three categories:
a. Psychophysical variables, such as tempo or volume
b. Ecological variables, which signal value or ‘meaningfulness’ of a piece of music
c. ‘Collative variables’ – the most significant of the three – concerns the ‘informational variables of the music such as its level of complexity’
IX. Explanation of the psychobiological approach
a. ‘On its way to the cortex, the higher brain responsible for conscious thought, the auditory nerve passes through the ARAS, which is responsible for the degree of physiological arousal we experience.’
b. ‘In practical terms, this means that music with low degrees of arousal potential causes activity in pleasure centres but no activity in displeasure centres. Music of moderate degrees of arousal potential causes maximal activity in pleasure centres but also begins to aactivate displeasure centres’ and so forth
X. Though the psychobiological approach, particularly concerning the ARAS, is somewhat debatable, it is valuable because it is an effort toward understanding the neurological bases of aesthetic judgments, adaptive grounds of music preferences, the correspondence of the theory to Plato and Aristotle, and the U-shaped relationship asserted does seem to hold.
XI. Much research suggests that Berlyne’s theory holds true, though there is some conflicting research

Week 8: Grouping Mechanisms in Music - Deutsch

Helmholtz first introduced perception as “unconscious inference”.
Various mechanisms form linkages between objects (dimensions of frequency, amplitude, temporal, spatial & principles of Gestalt psychology) to group in conformity and enable us to interpret our environment visually and aurally.
1.First order elements – grouped together e.g. elements close together likely to belong to same object, similar sounds likely to originate from common source,
2.High order abstractions – perceptual synthesis

Perceptual grouping of single tones by:
1) Harmonicity e.g. musical instrument tones.
Perceptual separation or fusion
2) Onset synchronicity i.e. temporal factors
Also affects timbre. Two complex tones played together are perceptually more distinct when asynchronous than when played at the same time e.g. Bach used in polyphonic music
3) Auditory continuity e.g. “picket fence effect” alternated tone with a noise burst that was perceived as a continuous sounding tone.
Sudden amplitude drops between signals may destroy continuity effects
4) Frequency modulation enhances a vowel’s perceptual salience
5) Amplitude modulation
6) Ear of input

Perceptual grouping of sequences of tones:
Pitch proximity- links between tones close in pitch but separate tones that are far apart
Temporal proximity-pauses between notes are used as markers for grouping tones
Sound quality- different instruments playing together are linked by tones of similar timbre

Grouping multiple tone sequences in space (veridical or illusionary conjunction):
1) Scale illusions (Deutsch)
– perceptual reorganization (right-handers tend to hear higher tones on their right and lower tones on their left regardless of the direction they come - opposite of audience’s view of orchestral seating)
- Spatial reorganization e.g. Tchaikowsky Pathetique (Perception of musical passages is influenced by spatial arrangements of instruments)
Timbre differences aid in listener’s grouping into instrument type
Simultaneous sequences create grouping by pitch proximity when both ears receive simultaneous input.
Spatial grouping occurred when temporal disparities were presented by both ears
Glissando illusion
2) Octave illusions (Deutsch)
Hypothesized that octave illusions are result of a combination of pitch determining mechanism and spatial mechanism.

Melody perception from phase-shifted tones
Cause grouping by spatial location
Similar to octave illusions, melodic groupings are formed by the changing spatial positions of equal frequency tones.

Handedness correlates (both octave and scale illusions)
Octave illusions – right-handers hear high tone in right ear and low tone in left. This is maintained even when earphones positions is reversed
Left-handers vary in localization of where high and low tones sounds & what type of illusion

Treatise on music theory laws:
1. Stepwise progression
2. Crossing of voices in counterpart prohibited

In order for the listener to perceive sounds as intended by the composer, an understanding of basic perceptual phenomena is required. Perceptual effects occur when the laws are broken.

Week 8: A New Approach to the Cognitive Neuroscience of Melody - Patel

Melody
-tone sequence of individual tones processed in terms of structured
relationships.
- melody depends on perceptual system of converting sequence into meaning

Melody perception includes
1)Instrument identity - timbre relies on spectral and temporal shape of sound
2)Grouping – more than one note, phrases
3)Beat and meter – events and inferences due to pattern pitch durations
4)Scale structure – culture specific e.g Western tonal music. Immunity to structure = tune deafness (congenital amusia)
5)Contour – pitch contour+ temporal pattern defines melodic contour. Melodic contour sensitive in infancy and contributes to intonation in speech perception and melodic memory
6)Parallelism – motivic/thematic similarity in different parts of melody
7)Intervallic implications – Gestalt principles apply to expectations of interval and melodic contours.
8)Tension vs. resolution – tonal weight (degree of structural stability of each tone in a key)and duration (longer tone=less tension). Krumhansl
9)Ornamentation – tonal hierarchy influences perception of ornamentation vs. structural form
10)Implicit harmony – chordal vertical/horizontal organization of pitches=harmony. Explicit vs. implicit.
11)Expression – variations in timing and amplitude to convey emotional interpretation
12)Complexity -
13)Meta-relations – relation between grouping and meter, contour and beat. Beat is very important in forming meta-relations with melody

Relationship between speech melodies (get the job done) and musical melodies (can stay in memory)

Approaches to the study of the neuroscience of melody
1)Neuropsychological approach – melodic perception in brain damaged individuals (right hemisphere=melodic contour, left = pitch)
2)Event-related potential approach (ERP) – study of melodic processing using EEG.
3)Haemodynamic approach – PET and fMRI. Detects blood flow to regions of the brain (inferior frontal gyrus and right temporal gyrus maintain tonal memory)
4)Auditory steady-state response (aSSR) – NEW!!! Patel & Balaban
aSSr is a sinusoidal neural oscillation produced in primary auditory cortex in response to acoustic stimulus. Used with a constant amplitude modulation rate (AM). Used to measure expectancy of tone sequence perception i.e. can be used to measure how expectancy is structured.

'The Neurobiology of Music Cognition and Learning' (Bruhn & Rauscher)

I. Music Cognition and Learning
a. Behaviorism (including classical and operant conditioning; mind as an unobservable ‘black box’)
b. Cognitive psychology
i. Constructivism; Piaget
ii. MENTAL REPRESENTATION
c. Sociohistorical Theory
i. Vygotsky (zone of proximal development)
d. Connectionism
i. Focuses research on the microstructure of cognition
ii. Uses EEG, EMG, MRI, CT and PET technologies to view the assess the active brain
iii. ‘Learning describes the tracing of paths and connections in [a] neural network’
II. Neurobiological foundations of cognition and learning
a. ‘Cognition can be seen as the result of a pattern-matching process by which mental representation are activated though perceived stimuli. The term mental representation covers a broad array of meanings and is often used synonymously with mental modes… scripts… frames… schemas… or neural networks.’
b. ‘Neurons of a particular brain area represent different features’
c. ‘Single cortical neurons with similar “interests” tend to be vertically arrayed in cortical columns like thin cylinders’
d. ‘What we perceive as music originates from distributed processing but combines into one conscious feature that forms a robust mental representation’ (p. 448)
e. ‘Neuronal plasticity is crucial for the neurobiology of learning…’ (p. 448)
f. ‘There are regional differences in the synaptogenesis in human brains. Huttenlocher… compared the development in two cortical areas: the auditory and prefrontal cortex. He found that synaptic density increase more rapidly in the auditory cortex (maximum at age 3 months) than in middle frontal gyrus (peak after age 15 months)’ (p. 448)
g. ‘The discovery of an inverted U shaped structure in brain development is confirmed by the development of glucose metabolism. Cerebral glucose consumption rises from birth until about 4 years of age, maintains from 4 until about 9-10 years, and then gradually declines (Chugani, 1998). These findings have important implications for our understanding of brain plasticity and critical periods for learning.’ (p. 448)
h. [page 448 is good overview for entire chapter]
III. Neurobiological research on music and learning
a. Overview
i. ‘M. H. Johnson (1998) has identified four factors… important to any understanding of the neurobiology of music learning and cognition’ (p.450)
1. ‘There are neural structures in the brain that are common to both humans and other mammals… Differences between humans and other animals primarily concern the extent of the cerebral cortex. Subcortical structures, such as the hippocampus and cerebellum, are structurally similar across mammalian species’
2. ‘The cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum continue to develop throughout childhood’
3. ‘Different areas of the cerebral cortex develop at different rates’
4. ‘Studies on cortical plasticity suggest that cortical specialization is heavily influenced by experience’
IV. Brain research on music cognition and learning
a. Processes need to be understood instead of just the roles of certain structures in the brain, as we have gained with imaging studies
b. Transfer effects (i.e. “The Mozart Effect”) – research findings are tentative at best, and Gardner views music as a separate intelligence
c. However ‘the importance of studying the transfer of musical learning to spatial learning [as exhibited in “The Mozart Effect”] becomes evident when one considers the overall significance of spatial abilities to cognitive function. High levels of spatial ability have frequently been linked to creativity, not only in the arts but in science and mathematics as well.’ (p. 454)
V. Music learning by individuals with brain disorders
a. Alzheimer’s, Down’s, Williams all have musically interesting features
b. Cochlear implants
VI. Applications to music education
a. ‘Results from brain research and neurobiological findings alone can hardly lead to immediate applications and recommendations for music education. These data cannot be directly transferred to educational practice because scientific descriptions are essentially different from educational prescriptions’ (p. 455)
b. The chapter concludes with 6 points of tentative conclusions (p. 456), which summarizes the chapter well.

Week 8: 'The Perception of Singing' (Sundberg)

I. Introduction
a. Two types of investigation in the study of singing: (1) consideration of an acoustical property which is varied systematically, and (2) acoustic correlates of certain types of voices or phonations
II. Function of the Voice
a. Vocal organ consists of (1) the respiratory system, (2) the vocal folds, and (3) the vocal tract
b. Formant frequencies: the ability of the vocal tract to respond with sympathetic resonance (and increase amplitude) of certain harmonics
i. 2 lowest formants determine vowel quality
ii. formants 3 and higher determine voice quality
III. Resonatory Aspects
a. Formant Frequencies
i. Singers abandon the formant frequencies of normal speech and move the frequency of the first formant due to the higher range of singing than speaking. The first formant may be lowered by opening the jaw (which also effects all other formant frequencies)
b. Sound Intensity and Masking
i. Orchestras often perform at 90-100 dB when playing loudly. The singer can be heard over the orchestra by singing louder through the use of formant frequencies that occur above the orchestra frequencies (loudness here is measured in mels)
c. Vowel Intelligibility
i. Vowels may be less clear in singing due to the need to adjust for formants. However, beginning and ending of the tone also helps with vowel identification.
IV. Bass, Baritone and Alto Singing
a. The “Singer’s Formant’
i. About 2800 Hz; results from the clustering of the 3, 4, and 5th formants
b. Audibility
i. ‘It seems to be an extremely good idea to enhance the spectral partials in thi frequency range. These partials are likely to be readily perceptible, because the competition from the orchestra’s partials is moderate at these high frequencies’
c. Modification of Vowel Quality
i. Modifying the color of vowels is the price for obtaining a singer’s formant, and it is essential that the formant not vary much between differing vowels
V. Voice Classification
a. Main classification is on range, but also important are formant frequencies
b. The females vocal tract is not a smaller version of the male one; the pharynx-to-mouth ration is smaller in females.
c. ‘The formant frequencies including the center frequency of the singer’s formant typically differ between singers’ voices, and these difference are significant to our possibility to classify them in terms of bas, baritone and tenor. These differences probably reflect difference in vocal tract dimensions as well as the pharynx-to-mouth length ratios.’
VI. Phonation
a. Loudness, Pitch and Phonation Type
i. ‘In summary, two main aspects of vowel sounds can be varied rather independently: the amplitude of the fundamental, which is controlled by glottal adduction, and the amplitude of the overtones, which is controlled by subglottal pressure.
b. Register
i. Definition
ii. Female Chest and Middle Register
iii. Male Modal and Falsetto Registers
1. ‘It has been shown that physiologically the vocal folds are longer, stiffer and thinner in falsetto than in modal register. As a rule, the glottis is never completely closed in falsetto’
VII. Aspects of Voice Timbre
a. Larynx Height
i. A higher larynx results in higher formants; the larynx is generally lowered in singing
b. Naturalness
VIII. Vibrato
a. Background
b. Perceptual Aspects
i. Vowel Intelligibility
1. ‘vibrato does not seem to facilitate vowel identification’
ii. Singleness in Pitch
1. ‘Although the fundamental frequency varies regularly in… tones, the pitch we perceive is perfectly constant as long as the vibrato rate and extent are kept within certain limits’
iii. Pitch and Mean Fundamental Frequency
1. ‘The ear seems to compute the average undulating frequency, and perceived pitch corresponds closely to this average’
IX. Pitch in Practice
a. ‘An important conclusion regarding the benefit of vibrato can be made. We have see nthat vibrato free representations of mistuned consonant intervals give rise to beats, and beats seem to be avoided in most types of music. By adding a vibrato, the singer escapes the beats.’
X. Expression
a. ‘By singing with expression, singers seem to aim at helping the listener with three mental tasks: (1) to realize which tones belong together and where the structural boundaries are, (2) to differentiate tone and interval categories, and (3) to sense the emotional landscape of the song.’
b. The origin of the code of expressivity in singing is likely the code of expressivity in speech

Website about the Brain

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html

This is a very simple overview

Webster's Model of Musical Creative Process

To add to last night's discussion...

LINK

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Week 7: Creativity Research in Music, Visual Art, Theater and Dance

I. Operational definition of creativity

a. “a creative product is one that is both novel (to its creator) and is ‘appropriate’ or ‘valuable’ in the context of a domain, and a creative person is one who produces creative products.

II. Music composition research: a growing field

III. Content general or content specific

a. There is a lack of agreement whether creativity is global or specific to one area, like music

IV. Recent empirical studies

a. U-shaped growth (Gardner, 1982): creative until middle adolescence, when creativity drops; creativity manifests again as one enters adulthood and beyond

b. Development of creative thinking in music

i. Swanwich and Tillman (1986, 1991): not U-shaped, but progresses through stages

V. Assessment

a. Torrance Tst of Creative Thinking (TTCT)

b. Webster’s Measurement of creative thinking in music-II (1994) is the current dominating measure

c. Table 23.1 on p. 401 includes all the creative tests discussed in chapter (good for review)

VI. Problem-finding: ‘Gezels and Czikszentmihalyi hypothesized that the first step in creative activity involves the discovery or formation of the problem itself, not problem finding’ (p. 404). Some studies have supported this.

VII. Creative thinking processes in music

a. LISTENING AS A CREATIVE PROCESS (SEE DUNN, 1977)

VIII. Relationships between creativity and aptitude or achievement

a. ‘the results of correlations between all of the variables showed that factors most related to children’s artistic creative capacity were: intellectual ability, competence of the preschool teacher, general creative thinking, and the self-esteem of the child’ (p. 405)

IX. Arts experiences and creativity

a. Correlation studies are conflicts, but it seems that instruction in the arts may increase creativity (p. 408)

Week 7: Creativity

Creativity

Definitions

· People’s capacity to generate and apply new ideas

· Ability to produce novel and appropriate work

· Measuring/studying creativity is difficult. J. P Guilford 1950 started explosion of research

· No common process for creativity (discovered by looking at eminent creative minds e.g Jung, Einstein, Mozart). Most new ideas consist of repeated use of methods of everyday problem solving

· Four distinct stages of creativity (Helmholtz, Wallas)

1. Preparation (define and research problem)

2. Incubation(no conscious work on the problem except connections)

3. Illumination (‘Eureka’ moment)

4. Verification (turning new idea into reality)

CRYSTALLISATION experience (Gardner), when individual realizes gift and changes approach toward that domain

Theories of creativity

· Sternberg (1999) Handbook of Creativity. Two approaches (outside science):

1) Mystical approach

2) Pragmatic approach – aim to develop techniques for promoting creative thinking in business executives

3) Investment theory - people who identify unfashionable ideas and make them so

· Martindale (1999) reviews biological mechanisms in explaining creativity

Three main mechanisms

1) cortical arousal

2) hemisphere asymmetry

3) frontal lobe activation

· Kris (1952) explains creativity in terms of:

1) ‘primary processes’ – everyday, rational activity

2) ’secondary processes – irrational; activity e.g. dreams, hallucinations

· Psychoanalytical approach (Freudian) – based on the inner struggle between socially accepted and instinctual sexually oriented behavior

Artistic creativity is sublimation (converting internal conflict of instincts versus socially-accepted, into acceptable activities)

· Bisociation (Koestler) and Associative theory – creative people are able to make unstereotypical associations with simple stimulus e.g. table

· Psychometric approach – e.g. tests of divergent thinking ‘Torrance Tests of Creative thinking’. Attempted to show that creative thinking was as important as intelligence

· Cognitive theories of creativity identify mental plans, structures, process of creative thinking (Sloboda)

· Computational theories of creativity uses artificial intelligences e.g. computer program for jazz improvisation(Johnson-Laird)

· Social-personality approach focuses on personality traits of specific creative people (Teresa Amabile, Social Psychology of Creativity)

Week 7: The Brain that Makes Music and is Changes by it - Alvaro Pascual-Leone

Brain Plasticity

· Experience-dependent modification in neural structure (Sensorimotor cortex changes with skill acquisition)

· Functional and structural changes

· Converting declarative into procedural knowledge, sensory to motor system (motor and sensory cortex involved in motor skill learning)

· Neuroimages document research e.g TMS

Experiment had two groups of participants who were not musically trained, practicing a simple finger exercises. First five days had two-hour practice sessions with a test following. Thereafter, group 1 continued daily practice while group 2 did not. Cortical output maps were used to document progress.

Interesting elements:

- rest period of 20-30 minutes required between practice and test to show improvement

- obvious reorganization required for perfection of exercise i.e. established new connections (sprouting), and unmasking of previously existing connections

Mental practice

Imagined rehearsal of a motor act with the intent of learning without movement.

Cognitive representation of motor task created in advance of physical practice allowing reorganization of motor output to finger flexor and extensor muscles

Prefrontal and supplementary motor areas, basal ganglia, and cerebellum are part of the network involved in the mental simulations of motor acts.

Risks

This flexibility can result in unwanted change, injury, unwanted cortical arrangement, overuse syndrome, focal dystonia (neurological involuntary movements due to disturbances in motor program i.e abnormal motor function commonly associated with pain)

Disorganizaion of sensory representations by inhibiting functional segregation of e.g. individual digits.

The Brain

I needed a 'cheat sheet' for the brain so I thought I'd share it on the blog as well. Please add where you feel is important.....

Cerebral cortex (asymmetrical)– emotional responses, consciousness, judgments, decisions, memory for habits, and motor activities (gray matters in the outer cerebral hemisphere)

Left hemisphere – language, math, reasoning, rhythmic tasks, absolute pitch

Right hemisphere – holistic functioning, melodic contour

Corpus Callosum – connects right and left hemispheres

Parietal lobe – visual, touch perception

Occipital lobes – vision

Temporal lobes (one on either side)– distinguish between different sounds, smells, short-term memory, sotring new information

Right lobe – visual memory

Left lobe – verbal memory

Brain stem – breathing, heart rate, swallowing, reflexes to seeing and hearing, blood pressure, digestion, temperature, ability to sleep

Vestibular – sense of balance

Cerrebellum – coordination of voluntary movement, balance

Parietal lobe – sensory input processing, sensory discrimination

Frontal lobe – planning, prganziing, problem solving, personality

Environment, motivation, and musical skill

‘Folk psychology’ of music - musical ability is largely innate and peculiar to just a select few.

Arguments opposing:
-Every person has some degree of inborn musicality which is fed by a
favourable environment
-Maturation, physical capabilities, and inherited talents
- Davidson’s ‘Three types of interaction between genes and environment’
1. Passive covariation (genetic material shapes environment)
2. Reactive covariation (needs of child leads to environmental change)
3. Active covariation (needs of a child leads to child to change
environment)

Environmental factors most important in encouraging musical skill:
1. Parents (early parental support and parental increased involvement later, showed most success)
2. Teachers (beginner musicians require strong music teacher relationship, more mature musicians focus more on teacher’s abilities)
3. Practice (Thomas Edison ‘1% inspiration and 99% perspiration)

Motivation
-what practice strategies are most important
- how skilled musicians are able to practice more than others

Expectancy-value theory (Fishbein and Asjen, 1975)
Why people should believe that playing a musical instrument will be important to them in the future
1. Attainment value
2. Intrinsic value
3. Utility value
4. Perceived cost
Self-efficacy
-Focuses on individual’s belief in their ability and capacity to achieve
Flow Theory (Czikszentmihalyi)
-Experienced when the challenge corresponds with the level of skill.
Attribution theory
-Cause to which people attribute their success or failure. Determines expectations for future success.

The Development of Musicial Abilities, by H. Gembris

This very rich chapter provides an overview of the development of musical abilities from pre-birth through late adulthood. It does this with five primary themes: (1) ‘the examination of fetal learning before and infant learning after birth,’ (2) neurobiological research, (3) expertise research (meaning general research on expert abilities), (4) life-span development of musical abilities, and (5) the emergence of developmental theories from the previous four points. Musical abilities are posited as being normally distributed. Much of the research on 0-10 years of age has been covered elsewhere in this course, but this reading brings it all together in a sequential fashion. Some interesting experimental methodologies are mentioned.

The next section discusses musical development from 10 to 20 years. Here the focus is clearly on musical preference, aesthetic values and cultural identity (which contrasts with the perception/cognition based approach to 0-10, and rightfully so, because 0-10 is a period of more rapid neural development). ‘Open-earedness’ is discussed, as it was in the North and Hargreaves text (in fact, much of this section repeats North and Hargreaves’ text on musical taste). The use of mass media is briefly discussed. Functions of music, listening styles and preferences are all given some discussion, though the discussion does not have enough depth to be very meaningful, unfortunately.

Finally, the author discusses developmental processes in those aged 20 years or more. Biological aspects of aging are discussed, as are the lives of professional musicians, including a section determining which decade of life seems to be most productive for composers (generally 35-45).

Overall, this chapter is a good overview of development, but serves more of a horizontal knowledge based rather than a vertical one.

Week 6: The Brain of Musicians (G. Schlaug)

IMAGE: HUMAN MOTOR CORTEX TOPOGRAPHY (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Human_motor_cortex_topography.png_

Disclaimer: This has been one of my favorite articles so far! Very informative…

Schlaug introduces the chapter by discussing brain plasticity, in terms of structure and function, and indicates that music is an ideal area to study this phenomenon.

STRUCTURAL BRAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MUSICIANS AND NONMUSICIANS

Several cross-sectional studies are described here to illustrate finding regarding the structural differences in musicians’ brains. Understanding such neural substrates allow us to understand the effect of music on the brain and potentially other areas for interdisciplinary research. Handedness was controlled for, as this variable can correlate with altered hemispheric brain structures and functions. Using fMRI (with fascinating methodologies that are clearly and succulently described, the following results were attained:

1) The anterior half of the corpus callosum is significantly larger in musicians, particularly those who started musical study when younger than 7 years old. This may be due to the necessity of increased inter-hemispheric communication for completing musical performance tasks.

2) The motor cortex size was measured (indirectly, though measurement of the correlating intrasulcal length of the posterior bank of the precentral gyrus). Results showed a greater symmetry in the left and right hemispheres in the dorsal subregion of the motor cortex. In addition to the greater symmetry, the measures of the motor cortex were larger in both hemispheres than in nonmusicians. This may be due to the right hemisphere controlling the non-dominant left hand, requiring a level of left hand motor refinement unnecessary for nonmusicians.

3) The cerebellum was also examined (in part due to the role of the cerebellum in movement coordination, timing of sequential movements, etc.); as an interesting methodological note, the researcher controlled for the large inter-subject variance in cerebellum size by measuring the cerebellum as a percentage of overall brain matter. There was a gender effect, with male musicians’ brains having a larger cerebellum than nonmusicians. There was no difference in females; of several possible causes, either a ceiling effect (considering the normally smaller size of the female brain) or the fact that most females reach maximum cerebellum size earlier in life than males (and hence not allowing as much time for musical activity to effect its size) are the most likely causes for this gender difference.

4) Regional differences in gray matter (important in processing sensory perceptual data) were examined. Musicians showed greater gray matter in the following regions: the perirolandic region, the premotor region, the posterior superior parietal region, the posterior mesial perisylvian region bilaterally, and the cerebellum.

FUNCTIONAL BRAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MUSICIANS AND NONMUSICIANS

Basic points include:

• While some aspects of music may pertain mostly to one hemisphere (e.g. the right hemisphere in melodic contour tasks and the left hemisphere in rhythmic tasks), extensive usage of both sides of the brain are essential for the musician.
• In a study looking for whether or not musicians have a different degree of hemispheric dominance, the researchers found that in only those musicians with absolute pitch, there is an increased left-sided asymmetry of the planum temporale. Presumably, based on this research, this area of the brain in the neural substrate of absolute pitch. It is uncommon for someone to have absolute pitch if they have not commenced musical study by the age of 7. The planum temprale is part of Wernicke’s area, which is important for the processing of language. This could mean that absolute pitch is based, at least in part, on the categorization that the planum temporale provides in language: absolute pitch means giving language to a particular tone without a reference.

The authors discuss the nature/nurture debate. The cross-sectional design of this study of course does not fully allow one to imply causality, as longitudinal studies (which would be nearly impossible for this field) would be required for that; however, the growing body of evidence relating musical tasks and musicians’ brains with specific neural substrates indeed points in the direction of causality (especially during early, formative years before 7 years of age).