Scott D. Lipscomb

Hearing Gestures, Seeing Music: Vision Influences Perceived Tone Duration

Percussionists inadvertently use visual information to strategically manipulate audience perception of note duration. Videos of long (L) and short (S) notes performed by a world-renowned percussionist were separated into visual (Lv, Sv) and auditory (La, Sa) components. Visual components contained only the gesture used to perform the note, auditory components the acoustic note itself. Audio and visual components were then crossed to create realistic musical stimuli. Participants were informed of the mismatch, and asked to rate note duration of these audio-visual pairs based on sound alone. Ratings varied based on visual (Lv versus Sv), but not auditory (La versus Sa) components. Therefore while longer gestures do not make longer notes, longer gestures make longer sounding notes through the integration of sensory information. This finding contradicts previous research showing that audition dominates temporal tasks such as duration judgment.

The role of music in video games

When communication researchers consider computer games (and video games) as a new form of media entertainment, they typically highlight those games’ interactivity because it is the main feature that distinguishes them from most other kinds of entertainment (Grodal, 2000; Vorderer, 2000). Not only do game players actively process information provided by the medium (as do viewers, readers, and users of other noninteractive media), but they also contribute substantially to the quality and progress of the media product itself. Their decisions and actions determine how a game looks, how it develops, and how it ends. Consequently, most theoretical work on the enjoyment of playing computer games has focused on the issue of interactivity and player action during game play (Klimmt, 2003, 2005). In order to handle modern entertainment software successfully, users must stay alert for most of the playing time and be able to respond quickly and appropriately to incoming new information. Some, if not many, of these responses may be automatized (Bargh, 1997) for efficient execution and conservation of cognitive processing resources. But, in general, the use of computer games should be modeled as a complex and multifaceted kind of action. Therefore, research on the psychology of action (e.g., Gollwitzer & Bargh, 1996; Heckhausen, 1977) offers theories and empirical findings that may help explain why people play and what they do during playing. Adopting the perspective of the psychology of action means searching for motifs (and motivations) of playing.

Graduate Music Students' Attitudes toward Research:

Research methods courses have become commonplace in the graduate music education curricula of American universities, and this topic is an element of graduate study in music education required for a university to obtain membership in the National Association of Schools of Music (2001). Other parts of music teacher education, such as applied instrument and voice studies, conducting, and pedagogical studies, perhaps hold a more clearly defined role than does the research component. Balancing between traditional curricular components and recent additions such as research methods remains the basis of difficult decisions for curriculum designers. Honing graduate curricula to meet the needs of students should not be done merely based on speculation. The attitudes of graduate students in music toward the study and application of research are important considerations in this quest. This investigation is intended to provide support, based on expression of student opinion, for the inclusion of research methods courses in their curriculum.

Cross‐modal integration: Synchronization of auditory and visual components in simple and complex media

Recently, there has been a significant amount of interest in the perceptual interaction between auditory and visual (A–V) systems in multimodal contexts. Both psychologists and musicians are beginning to investigate the manner in which a stimulus perceived in one sensory modality may affect the cognitive processing of a stimulus in a separate modality. Beginning in the 1950s, a series of psychophysical investigations revealed cross‐modal influences using extremely simple stimuli. Most studies incorporating more complex stimuli have focused on the referential aspect of musical sound, i.e., the ‘‘cognitive congruency’’ of the music and the visual images. The present study will specifically investigate the alignment of accents (i.e., salient events) in the auditory domain with those in the visual domain, and the effect of this alignment on subject perception of the A–V composite. The author will report on three experiments utilizing varying levels of stimulus complexity: single‐object animations, animations ...

Perceptual measures of visual and auditory cues in film music

Both musical sound and visual images have the ability to communicate. Visual images often convey explicit (verbalizeable) content, while musical sound lies most often in the implicit, nonverbalizeable realm. Music perceived as organized by a listener follows a culture‐dependent rule system, differing from that found in verbal communication. Numerous investigations have determined specific cognitive strategies utilized in musical listening. Likewise, there have been similar studies devoted to strategies utilized in the cognition of visual images. Recently, there has been a significant amount of interest in the perceptual interaction between the auditory and visual systems in multi‐modal contexts. Both psychologists and musicians are beginning to investigate the manner in which a stimulus perceived in one sensory modality may affect the cognitive processing of a stimulus in a separate modality. Beginning in the 1950s, a series of psychophysical investigations revealed cross‐modal influences using simple stimuli. A number of investigators are presently attempting to incorporate more complex stimuli to determine the interrelationship of auditory and visual cues processed simultaneously in ecologically valid experimental contexts. Drawing upon research carried out by the author, this paper will highlight methods utilized successfully in such investigations, summarizing results and proposing future directions.