Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science

Volume 3

Editor-in-Chief Lynn Nadel University of Arizona

Volume 1 Academic Achievement ± Environmental Volume 2 Epilepsy ± Mental Imagery, Philosophical Issues about Volume 3 Mental Models ± Signal Detection Theory Volume 4 Similarity ± Zombies

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Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd., Pondicherry, India Printed and bound by The Bath Press, England Editor-in-Chief Lynn Nadel University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Section Editors

David Chalmers (Philosophy) Alvin Goldman University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Peter Culicover (Linguistics) Catherine Harris The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

Robert French (Computer Science) Erhard Hinrichs University of LieÁge, LieÁge, Belgium TuÈbingen University, TuÈbingen, Germany

Robert Goldstone (Psychology) Ray Jackendoff Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

Lynn Nadel (Neuroscience) Keith Johnson University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Morris Moscovitch Ancillary Section Editors University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada John Pinel Mike Gasser (Computer Science) University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Paul Quinn Joel Levin (Education) Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, PA, USA Wisconsin Center for Education Research, Madison, WI, USA Rich Zemel David Noelle (Computer Science) University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

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Fernanda Ferreira Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Music Cognition 155

Music Cognition Introductory article Caroline Palmer, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA Melissa K Jungers, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

CONTENTS Introduction Musical skill and performance Perception of sound properties in music Parallels between music and language Understanding of pitch and rhythm Conclusions Development of musical abilities

Music cognition addresses the mental activities Western cultures, including classical, rock, and involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, and jazz styles, is based on 12 pitch classes, referred producing music. to as tones C, D, etc. (Music in most cultures uses pitch classes, but they are often tuned to INTRODUCTION different frequencies.) Tones whose frequencies differ by a factor of two, called an octave, are Music cognition addresses the mental activities in- perceived as having the same pitch quality or volved in perceiving, learning, remembering, and `chroma' and belong to the same pitch class. producing music. Most of these mental activities Each musical piece is composed primarily of are implicit and unconscious; even listeners with- tones from seven of the pitch classes, called a out musical training can make sophisticated judg- diatonic scale. Major and minor scales are defined ments about music. Psychological studies of music for each pitch class by the intervals (number of include perception of sound properties, under- standing of pitch and rhythm, development of mu- pitch steps) between the tones. The key often refers to the pitch class from which the scale is built. sical abilities, musical skill and performance, and There is a hierarchy of relative importance among parallels with language. tones in a key; tonality is the perception of pitches PERCEPTION OF SOUND PROPERTIES in relation to the tonic, the central prominent tone. Interestingly, each tone is perceived differ- IN MUSIC ently, depending on its key context. For example, Four qualities of sound are especially important in the tone C is perceived as most important (the music perception: pitch, duration, loudness, and tonic) in the key of C and less important in the timbre. Pitch arises from the perception of a key of F. sound wave's frequency (number of vibrations Despite this complexity, listeners' understanding per second); loudness arises from the perception of pitch structure does not require explicit training. of amplitude or intensity (sound pressure change); The statistical regularity with which tones, chords, duration is the perception of the time over which a and keys occur provide enough information for sound is heard. Most musical instruments produce listeners to identify the tonic, or judge two tones complex sound waves, which contain several fre- as related. Tones that occur more often are per- quencies (called harmonics) and amplitudes that ceived as more stable or less likely to change. change over time; timbre arises from the perception Listeners can recognize a familiar melody based of these harmonics and their onsets (called attack on the up-and-down pattern of pitch changes, transients). The lowest frequency in a complex called the melodic contour, even when the pitch tone, called the fundamental frequency, determines classes have changed. With training, most listeners the perception of pitch. acquire the ability to name the pitch of a tone in relation to other pitches, called relative pitch. A few UNDERSTANDING OF PITCH AND listeners have absolute pitch, or the ability to name RHYTHM pitches heard in isolation (without a reference pitch). Acquisition of absolute pitch may be related Pitch and rhythm may be the most psychologically to the age at which musicians first learn to name important dimensions of music. Most music in pitches. 156 Music Cognition

When listeners tap along with music, they are listening preferences, because infants allowa test often responding to the rhythm: a temporal pattern of which musical abilities are established prior that arises from many variables, including duration to much musical exposure. Infants are typically (from a tone's onset to its offset) and inter-onset exposed to certain types of music, including lulla- interval (from one tone's onset to the next tone's bies and play-songs sung by parents and other onset). Meter and tempo also influence the percep- caregivers. Songs that adults sing to infants are tion of rhythm. Meter is a regular alternation of higher in pitch, slower in tempo, and more expres- strong and weak beats in twos (such as marches) sive overall than the same songs sung to adults. By or threes (such as waltzes) at many hierarchical seven months old, infants are more attentive to temporal levels. Tempo is the pace or rate of these infant-directed songs than to other forms of music; listeners showpreferences for tempi around singing. 300±900 ms per beat. People tend to tap and repro- Many basic perceptual abilities of infants resem- duce rhythms accurately at this tempo, suggesting ble those of adults. For example, infants and adults that an internal pulse operating around this tempo are sensitive to the same pitch and rhythmic di- guides perception and performance. mensions of music. Infants recognize the equiva- Music perception reflects a combination of pitch lence of pitches that are an octave apart. Around six and rhythm at several hierarchical levels. Listeners months old, infants' babbling in response to music tend to segment music into short groups: a group is a often preserves the melodic contour, and they re- set of successive tones that are related. The percep- spond the same way to melodies whose specific tion of group boundaries is influenced by accents, or pitches are altered, as long as they retain the tones that stand out from others, caused by changes same melodic contour. By six months old, infants in pitch, duration, intensity, or timbre. Listeners can produce body movements in response to the also segment simultaneous or overlapping tones musical rhythm and they are sensitive to changes in into perceptual parts or voices, called streams. tempo and rhythm. Finally, six-month-old infants Stream segregation is thought to reflect innate, prefer music that is segmented into natural phrase `bottom-up' perceptual processes, unaffected by units more than music that is segmented in the general knowledge. Music perception is also influ- middle of phrases (see example shown in Figure 1). enced by `top-down' knowledge: well-learned sche- Thus, infants attend to and group musical se- mas, or acquired knowledge of tonal or metrical quences according to the same perceptual prin- relationships. Schemas influence listeners' expect- ciples as adults. ations and aid their for music. Schemas Other musical abilities develop with further mu- may also contribute to listeners' emotional response sical exposure. By two to three years old, children to music: schemas generate unconscious expect- spontaneously produce novel musical phrases in ations for upcoming events, and musical events song, and can repeat short phrases accurately; by often occur that conflict with schematic expect- four or five years old, they can accurately imitate ations. Listeners experience arousal and an emo- musical rhythms. By seven years old, children are tional response to the musically unexpected events. sensitive to at least two metrical levels in musical rhythm; with musical training, adults show sensi- DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL tivity to more metrical levels. Implicit knowledge ABILITIES of chord and key relationships also increases with musical exposure; the perception of hierarchical Studies of musical development often focus on tonal relationships begins around the age of infants' responses, measured by attentiveness or seven, but continues to develop into adulthood.

Natural 2 q q qq h qq Phrase & 4 q q qq qq h Segments

Unnatural 2 qq q q h qq Phrase & 4 q q q q qq h Segments

Figure 1. Example of natural (top) and unnatural (bottom) musical phrase segments in `Twinkle, twinkle, little star'. Music Cognition 157

Interestingly, adults become less sensitive than louder and faster than `sad' tunes. Emotional infants to musical changes that preserve typical, content is linked to musical structure in perform- schematic relationships of well-learned musical ance: the expressive performance features that styles. convey emotion tend to coincide with unexpected (less likely) structural features. (See Prosody) MUSICAL SKILL AND PERFORMANCE Howare performance abilities acquired? With short-term practice (hours), performers segment Music performance is a rapid, fluent motor skill. music into larger units, anticipate future events Most people hum, clap, or perform in other ways more, and increase expressive features. With long- that reflect sophisticated musical skills. Scientific term experience (years), performers monitor and studies of music performance, aided by computer- adjust their performances better, refine expressive monitored musical instruments, focus on several features, and extend their knowledge of how to cognitive and motor factors: segmenting and re- perform one melody to unfamiliar melodies. Indi- trieving structural units from memory, coordinat- vidual differences in performance skills are tied in ing motor movements, communicating structure part to accumulated practice over a lifetime. Gen- and emotion with expressive features, and acquir- eral memory and motor factors in performance ing these skills. increase most during the first fewyears of skill Performers do not mentally prepare entire mu- acquisition, whereas sensitivity to specific musical sical pieces at once, but instead segment them into features such as phrase structure and meter in- smaller units such as phrases. In eye±hand span creases across all skill levels. tasks, pianists are shown music notation briefly and then perform from memory; they mu- PARALLELS BETWEEN MUSIC AND sical segments that fit within short-term memory LANGUAGE constraints. Errors in memorized performance in- dicate memory constraints on howfar ahead per- Music and language showinteresting parallels in formers can plan. Performance errors often result in their structure and in howpeople perceive and tones that are similar to the intended tones in har- produce them. They are found in all human cul- mony, key, or meter. Thus, performers' musical tures, and children spontaneously acquire both. knowledge reflects the same harmonic, diatonic, Potentially universal mental activities in language and rhythmic structures as listeners' knowledge. and music include: auditory grouping/segmenta- After musical events are retrieved from memory, tion strategies; rhythmic structure in perception they must be transformed into appropriate move- and production; and grammatical rules that influ- ments. Internal clocks or timekeepers regulate and ence understanding of music and language. coordinate the production of different parts of Listeners segment a continuous stream of sound a performance, such as hands in instrumental into discrete units in speech and music. Two basic playing or performers in ensembles. Performers perceptual principles influence segmentation in are more accurate at reproducing musical rhythms both domains: first is sensitivity to acoustic changes whose durations form simple ratios (1:1 or 2:1) that or contrasts that define the boundaries of a unit, coincide with a simple internal timekeeper, than such as attack transients that occur at musical tone those whose durations form complex ratios (3:2 or onsets or noise bursts at phoneme boundaries. Con- 4:3). Musical motion is often compared to physical trasts also mark larger units, such as changes in motion; for example, performers reduce the tempo tempo (slowing down) that mark phrase boundar- near phrase boundaries at a rate similar to slowing ies in both music and speech. Second is sensitivity down from a run to a walk. to periodic or repeating patterns, such as meter in Performers communicate musical structure and music and in language. Memory limitations also emotion to listeners through acoustic variations in influence segmentation: for example, the size of frequency, amplitude, duration, and timbre, often musical and verbal phrases is usually within termed `expression'. Expression differentiates one short-term memory limits. performance from another, similar to howprosody Rhythmic structure influences the relative im- (the rhythm and intonation of speech) differenti- portance that listeners attribute to individual elem- ates one speaker from another. Expressive features ents in both music and speech, especially poetry. of performance often coincide with structurally im- Tones (music) and syllables (speech) are accented portant events, such as metrical accents or phrase in production with higher pitch, longer duration, boundaries. Expressive features also signal emo- and greater amplitude, which lead to the percep- tional content; `happy' tunes tend to be performed tion of rhythm. Music and speech commonly build 158 Music Cognition on a foundation of alternating strong and weak computational models of musical behavior. Al- beats or pulses. Although human speech is not as though music may be a specialized human ability, rhythmically regular as most music, listeners tend it is not special in its underlying perceptual, to perceive alternating strong and weak stresses as memory, and motor components. rhythmically regular in both domains, and rhyth- mically regular music and language are better re- membered. Further Reading Finally, humans have the capacity to understand Aiello R and Sloboda JA (eds) (1994) Musical Perceptions. an unlimited number of melodies or sentences: a NewYork, NY: Oxford University Press. grammar is a model of this capacity. Grammars, or Butler D (1992) The Musician's Guide to Perception and a limited set of rules that generates an unlimited Cognition. NewYork, NY: Macmillan. number of sequences, have been proposed for Deutsch D (ed.) (1999) The Psychology of Music, 2nd edn. music as well as language. A compositional gram- San Diego, CA: Academic Press. mar can generate music in a particular style, such Dowling WJ and Harwood DL (1986) Music Cognition. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. as counterpoint or jazz. A listening grammar ap- Handel S (1989) Listening. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. plies a set of rules or implicit knowledge of the Hargreaves D (1986) The Developmental Psychology of acceptable combinations of tones, chords, and Music. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. rhythms in a musical style. The result is the percep- Jones MR and Holleran S (eds) (1992) Cognitive Bases of tion of musical units such as phrases, hierarchical Musical Communication. Washington, DC: American relationships among units, and harmonic or tonal Psychological Association. tension and relaxation. A challenge for listening Krumhansl CL (1990) Cognitive Foundations of Musical grammars is to accommodate different but equally Pitch. NewYork, NY: Oxford University Press. correct segmentations of the same music. Thus, one Lerdahl F and Jackendoff R (1983) A Generative Theory of difference between musical and linguistic gram- Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. mars is that music is more flexible and less con- Meyer LB (1956) Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. strained in its grammar than language. Palmer C (1997) Music performance. Annual Review of Psychology 48: 115±138. CONCLUSIONS Sloboda JA (1985) The Musical Mind: The of Music. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Scientific study of musical abilities has grown tre- Trehub S, Schellenberg G and Hill D (1997) The origins of mendously since the early 1990s, due to techno- music perception and cognition: a developmental logical advances and theoretical overlap with perspective. In: Deliege I and Sloboda J (eds) Perception related fields in cognitive science such as artificial and Cognition in Music, pp. 103±128. Hove, UK: intelligence, linguistics, neuroscience, and philoso- Psychology Press. phy. Related topics include neural bases and