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.