LECTURE SEVEN Flashcards

Question

CONTINUITY AND RESTORATION

Answer 1

* Web activity * When noise added to a sound – we can reconstruct missing tones! * Prediction, top-down effects, etc.

Answer 2

Ability to focus attention on one speaker alone when lots of other speakers as background noise * Note – auditory cortex responds in almost the same way as listening to only one speaker (fMRI)! * Acoustic startle response – VERY rapid motor response to a loud unexpected noise * Probably a good idea

Answer 3

* Pitch is a good determiner of the size of an animal * If an unknown animal has a low pitch, it is probably large – and should be avoided * Frog croaking is intentionally misleading!

Answer 4

* Music involves more complicated forms than simple auditory perception * Tone / pitch * Timbre * Rhythm * Language (if lyrical) * Emotional content / aesthetics * Music is perceived holistically

Answer 5

* Inability to perceive / reproduce tone * “Tone deafness” * Can be acquired or congenital * Flipside – absolute/perfect pitch

Answer 6

* Inability to perceive music holistically * Similar to associative object agnosia – and similar locations of damage (temporal lobe, ventral stream) * You can hear it as sound, but you can’t hear it as music * Can appear selective to music – implications?

Answer 7

* People can pick up on basic rhythm (pulse) of a song within only a few beats - Neural entrainment

Answer 8

Repetitive beat creates pulses of neural firing, resulting in synchronized oscillations generated after only a few cycles

Answer 9

* Steady beat results in neural entrainment * Different rates of beats have different effects * Can result in altered states of consciousness - Shamanic drumming: 4 – 4.5 beats per second (Hz). Same frequency as theta brain waves (in between wakefulness and sleep). Induces trance-like state

Answer 10

* When listening to rhythmic music, areas of motor cortex and cerebellum are engaged * Rhythm perception is sensorimotor * Entrain body movement to musical rhythm. Eg:Foot tapping, head bobbing, Dancing

Answer 11

* The “beautiful” and artistic qualities of music (and art in general) are known as aesthetics * Understanding aesthetics requires understanding of psychological processes leading to “aesthetic experience” * Related to emotional aspects, but distinct

Answer 12

* Music and fear-suppression (Huron) * Something happens in the song that triggers a fear response (in the amygdala) * Loud unexpected noises * Crescendos * “Bass drops” * Frisson response * We then appraise the initial fear response as not harmful * This resolution of fear feels good, leading to part of the aesthetic experience

Answer 13

* Caudate active during “anticipation” * Nucleus accumbens (dopaminergic structure in reward circuit) active during “peak” moments * Cycle of anticipation -> resolution is rewarding * EDM break/build/drop structure

Answer 14

* “Mozart effect” * Listening to Mozart before a test of. spatial reasoning improved scores on the test compared to control! (Rauscher et al., 1993) * (as filtered by pop journalism) Mozart makes you smart!

Answer 15

* Effect size was very small, and transient (doesn’t last long) * Effect did not generalize to fluid intelligence * NO evidence that it does anything to babies * Effect can be seen with other stimuli... * Other kinds of music also work (even heavy metal...if you’re into it) * Pop music works better * Stephen King fans get the same effect from listening to Stephen King

Answer 16

* Linguistic/attentional factors * Don’t listen to lyrical music while reading * Cognitive arousal is good...in moderation * Listen to something you like, but not too much (distracting) * Mostly instrumental, not too arousing, steady beat but not to the point of trance induction