Zohar Eitan

Lower pitch is larger, yet falling pitches shrink.

Experiments using diverse paradigms, including speeded discrimination, indicate that pitch and visually-perceived size interact perceptually, and that higher pitch is congruent with smaller size. While nearly all of these studies used static stimuli, here we examine the interaction of dynamic pitch and dynamic size, using Garners speeded discrimination paradigm. Experiment 1 examined the interaction of continuous rise/fall in pitch and increase/decrease in object size. Experiment 2 examined the interaction of static pitch and size (steady high/low pitches and large/small visual objects), using an identical procedure. Results indicate that static and dynamic auditory and visual stimuli interact in opposite ways. While for static stimuli (Experiment 2), higher pitch is congruent with smaller size (as suggested by earlier work), for dynamic stimuli (Experiment 1), ascending pitch is congruent with growing size, and descending pitch with shrinking size. In addition, while static stimuli (Experiment 2) exhibit both congruence and Garner effects, dynamic stimuli (Experiment 1) present congruence effects without Garner interference, a pattern that is not consistent with prevalent interpretations of Garners paradigm. Our interpretation of these results focuses on effects of within-trial changes on processing in dynamic tasks and on the association of changes in apparent size with implied changes in distance. Results suggest that static and dynamic stimuli can differ substantially in their cross-modal mappings, and may rely on different processing mechanisms.

Themes as prototypes: Similarity judgments and categorization tasks in musical contexts

Similarity judgments and corresponding categorizations often differ, as the former does not predict the latter (Keil, 1989). Prototype-based models suggest that categorization emphasizes features which distinguish contrasting prototypes from each other, features which may have a lesser role in free similarity ratings (Medin, Goldstone & Gentner, 1993; Rosch, 1988). We studied this effect in musical contexts, examining how specifying contrasting musical themes as frames of reference affects listeners’ categorizations of other extracts in the same composition, and comparing categorizations with corresponding similarity judgments. Musical materials employed in Lamont & Dibbens similarity rating experiment (2001), extracted from piano pieces by Beethoven and Schoenberg, were used. Participants independently marked, for each piece, to what degree extracts “belong” to each of its two main themes. These categorizations were compared with similarity ratings in the above study and with published thematic analyses of the 2 pieces, and were correlated with combinations of diverse musical features of the themes. Categorizations concurred with similarity ratings for Beethoven, and differed for Schoenberg. However, despite participants’ independent ratings of affiliations with the two themes, in both pieces categorizations, unlike similarity ratings, were negatively correlated: the stronger an extracts affiliation with a theme, the weaker its affiliation with a contrasting theme. This effect resulted in some dramatic disparities between similarity ratings and corresponding categorizations. In addition, correlating listeners’ categorizations with musical features generated a graded category structure, where an extracts affiliation with a theme correlated with the number of distinctive surface features it shared with this theme. We suggest that musical themes serve as concrete prototypes for other events in the piece. Presenting contrasting themes emphasizes their distinctive features, thus creating an intraopus field of similarities and differences which characterizes the piece. Within that field, rival prototypes, represented by the main themes, compete to add incoming events to their sphere.

Intensity changes and perceived similarity: Inter-parametric analogies

Music theorists and psychologists have described diverse musical processes in terms of changes (increase or decrease) in “intensity”. This paper examines the hypothesis that analogous intensity changes in different musical parameters can be perceived as similar, and discusses implications of such perception for music analysis. In the experiment reported, participants rated the degree to which members of pairs of musical stimuli were similar in character to a “standard” — a crescendo on a repeated tone. One member of each pair presented an “increase” in a specific musical parameter, while the other presented a “decrease” (e.g., pitch ascent vs. descent). Parameters investigated included melodic direction and attack rate and their combinations, pitch interval size, motivic pace, and harmonic tension. For most parameters, the intensifying figure was rated as closer to the standard (itself intensifying) than its abating counterpart. Perceived similarity was strongest between figures presenting intensification in dynamics (crescendo) and pitch direction (ascent), while similarity between intensification in dynamics and tempo (accelerando) was weaker, and perceived mainly by musically-trained subjects. Similarity between dynamic change and harmonic progression was perceived only when the latter involved manipulation of dissonance, and dynamic intensification and increase in pitch interval size were perceived as similar only for ascending intervals. Importantly, the combined effect of melodic direction and attack rate on similarity perception was additive, rather than interactive, though the effect of melodic direction was significantly stronger. This result supports models of “integrated intensity contours” (Berry, 1976; Todd, 1994), but suggests different weighting for different musical parameters. In sum, results indicate that listeners can perceive intensity contours in different parameters as analogous, and thus suggest that intensity contours may serve as musical “gestures”, regardless of the specific parameters depicting them. The implications of these results to music analysis are discussed with regard to motivic structure, thematic prototypicality, and structural functions of intensity contours.

Primary versus secondary musical parameters and the classification of melodic motives

Music theorists often maintain that motivic categorization in music is determined by “primary” musical parameters — music-specific aspects of pitch and temporal structure, like pitch intervals or metric hierarchies, serving as bases for musical syntax. In contrast, “secondary” parameters, including important aspects of extra-musical auditory perception like loudness, pitch register and timbre, do not establish motivic categories. We examined systematically the effects of contrasts in primary vis-à-vis secondary musical parameters on listeners’ melodic classification. Matrices of melodic patterns, each presenting 8 motives, were created by all interactions of two contrasting conditions in three musical features. In Experiment 1, four matrices manipulated pitch contour, pitch-interval class, and a compound feature involving the secondary parameters of dynamics, pitch register and articulation. In Experiment 2, four different matrices manipulated rhythmic structure (metrical and durational accent), pitch intervals, and the compound feature used in Exp1. Participants (95 participants, 27 musically trained, in Exp. 1; 88 participants, 23 musically trained, in Exp. 2) classified stimuli in each matrix into two equal-numbered (4–4) groups of motives “belonging together.” In both experiments, most participants used contrast in secondary parameters as a basis for classification, while few classifications relied on differences in pitch interval (Exp. 2) or interval class (Exp. 1). Classifications by musically trained participants also applied melodic contour and rhythm. Results suggest a hierarchy of musical parameters that challenges those suggested by most music theorists. We discuss the ramifications of the results for notions of perceived thematic-motivic structure in music, and consequentially for cognitively-informed music analysis.

Garner’s paradigm and audiovisual correspondence in dynamic stimuli: Pitch and vertical direction

Garner’s speeded discrimination paradigm is a central tool in studying crossmodal interaction, revealing automatic perceptual correspondences between dimensions in different modalities. To date, however, the paradigm has been used solely with static, unchanging stimuli, limiting its ecological validity. Here, we use Garner’s paradigm to examine interactions between dynamic (time-varying) audiovisual dimensions — pitch direction and vertical visual motion. In Experiment 1, 32 participants rapidly discriminated ascending vs. descending pitch glides, ignoring concurrent visual motion (auditory task), and ascending vs. descending visual motion, ignoring pitch change (visual task). Results in both tasks revealed strong congruence effects, but no Garner interference, an unusual pattern inconsistent with some interpretations of Garner interference. To examine whether this pattern of results is specific to dynamic stimuli, Experiment 2 (testing another 64 participants) used a modified Garner design with two baseline conditions: The irrelevant stimuli were dynamic in one baseline and static in the other, the test stimuli always being dynamic. The results showed significant Garner interference relative to the static baseline (for both the auditory and visual tasks), but not relative to the dynamic baseline. Congruence effects were evident throughout. We suggest that dynamic stimuli reduce attention to and memory of between-trial variation, thereby reducing Garner interference. Because congruence effects depend primarily on within-trial relations, however, congruence effects are unaffected. Results indicate how a classic tool such as Garner’s paradigm, used productively to examine dimensional interactions between static stimuli, may be readily adapted to probe the radically different behavior of dynamic, time-varying multisensory stimuli.

Commentary on "The Happy Xylophone: Acoustics Affordances Restrict An Emotional Palate" by Michael Schutz, David Huron, Kristopher Keeton, & Greg Loewer

In this commentary, I raise several issues of method and presentation and suggest a number of follow-up experiments associated with some of these issues. Broad suggestions are also made (or rather preached): the need to deal empirically with musical emotions subtler than the oft-investigated basic emotions, and the role that interactions between musical variables may play in shaping subtle musical expression, as exemplified by some well-known xylophone soli from the orchestral repertory. Submitted 2008 August 31; accepted 2008 September 2.