PSYCH 169 Midterm Flashcards
What was Mehr et al. 3 dimensions of song?
Formality, arousal, and religiosity
Was music present in all of Mehr’s community that they sampled?
Yes
Which part of this three-dimensional space do love songs fall in?
low on all dimensions
In an experiment discussed by Mehr et al. people listened to songs from different cultures and where asked to decide which of four “behavioral contexts” it was associated with: dance, lullaby, healing, and love. If the song was from an unfamiliar culture, people could not classify them any better than simple chance guessing. TRUE OR FALSE
False
What is the true about the universality of music?
Music is found in all societies
All cultures use music in more than one way (behavioral context)
Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution tried to answer the primary question …
Where do the world’s species come from?
Survival of the fittest doesn’t quite capture Darwin’s theory of evolution. What’s wrong with this summary of the theory?
Survival isn’t the point; it’s reproduction.
An organism that dies immediately after successfully reproducing, even at a young age, would be successful in evolutionary terms (assuming the organism’s death doesn’t immediately doom its offspring)
It’s really not about the survival fitness of the organism; it’s about the genes and whether they get into the next generation.
TRUE OR FALSE: If every individual of a species has a given trait, and it does not vary from one individual to the next, that trait is, by definition, not heritable in the technical sense.
TRUE
TRUE OR FALSE: Many behavioral traits have been found to be at least partially heritable
TRUE
What is the primary drive of change in evolution?
Natural selection
TRUE OR FALSE: Homologous traits refer to traits in two different species that were passed down from a common ancestor.
TRUE
TRUE OR FALSE: If two traits serve the same function they are always homologous.
FALSE
What is the music paradox?
Music is just sound pressure waves. It doesn’t provide nourishment or shelter but is held on a pedestal in the pantheon of pleasure.
Is music universal?
yes, exists in every society both with and without words
Musicality
a natural, spontaneously developing set of traits, which enables music
- Must have musicality to produce a variety of cultural music
-Basic ability to produce and have emotion to music
-Doesn’t change on short timescales
What is language?
Language is the varied systems of words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them that human societies use and understand.
Are there technologically primitive societies?
YES
Are there primitive languages?
NO
Can other human species learn human language?
NO
What is Linguisticality
the spontaneously developing set of traits that enables the acquisition and use of language
What are the 3 things that explain the nature of Grammar?
Hierarchial(not linear)
Productive: finite rules can generate an infinite set of sentences.
Recursive: embedding multiple sentences in one sentence
Descriptive grammar
unconsciously learned rules for how we actually talk (Real world)
Prescriptive grammar
explicitly taught cultural rules for how we ought to talk, learned in school
what are the 5 cored ideas of evolution?
(1) Populations change over time (evolve)
(2) Evolution is gradual
- Typically on timescales of hundreds to thousands to millions of years
(3) Populations diverge into different species (speciation)
(4) All species share a common ancestry
(5) NATURAL SELECTION IS THE MAJOR DRIVER OF CHANGE AT A GENETIC LEVEL
what are the other sources of evolution?
Genetic drift
Spandrels
Homology
Shared ancestry
Example of homology
four limbs of tetrapods –> all birds, bats, mice, and crocodiles all have four limbs
Mammalian forelimb
Analogy
shared function with different evolutionary origin
Example of Analogy
-vocal learning in some apes (humans), birds, sea mammals, elephants, bats
- bats vs. birds wings
Deep homology
a conserved developmental genetic algorithm or module can be copied and repurposed
Example of deep homology
jellyfish and human eyes use the same genetic module to build them
Why are some things disgusting?
built into our immune system to avoid hazards
Why are we not sexually attracted to our siblings?
we need genetic diversity and that is more successful with different people
Why are we afraid of snakes but not driving?
to recent to develop a biologically fear for driving
What is heritability?
how much variation in a trait is explained by genetic variation
What is genetic variation?
a difference of something we all have like hair color, amount of fingers
diversity of genetic material within a population
What study is used to estimate heritability?
Twin adoption studies
How much DNA do identical twins share?
100% (monozygotic)
-came from one fertalized egg that split into two
How much DNA do Fraternal twins share?
50% (Dizygotic)
Is heritability the same thing as “under genetic control”?
NO
Is having five fingers heritable?
No, because there is essentially no variation in this trait
Is having 5 fingers under genetic control?
Yes
How do genes evolve?
they evolve to enable adaptive phenotypes in the context of their particular environment
ex: there is no reason to hard wire the brain to instinctively speak a particular language if you can just wire in the capacity to learn with the guarantee that the environment will provide a linguistic environment from which to learn
Why don’t we have the ability to synthesize our own Vitamin C?
our ancestors got vitamin c from the environment (fruit), no reason to keep the ability to synthesize (no need to waste energy)
What is the faculty of language?
all humans are born with the ability to acquire language aka universal grammar
Broad sense (FLB)
all of the mental capacities needed for the acquisition and use of language, including those that are not specific to language and may be shared by other species
Narrow sense (FLN)
only those capacities that are both unique to our species and specific to language (possibly syntax and recusion)
Examples of FLB
memory
speech perception
sequencing
vocal control
theory of mind
Phonology
study of the sound structure of language, a generative system of rules for combining discrete units (phonemes) into syllables, words, and phrases
what does prosody refer to?
melody
rhythm
stress patterns
Morphemes
smallest unit of meaning
(1) Free morphemes
(2) Bound morphemes (-ed, -ing)
Morpheme operations
Derivational: change in form and category (verb –> noun)
Inflectional: form is the same (tense walk –> walked)
Compounding (computer-lover)
syntax
study of phrase and sentence formation
Productive (property of syntax)
if you know the rules and the words you can produce and understand sentences you’ve never said or hear
Recursive (property of syntax)
rules can contain instances of itself
what are the two types of syntax?
autnomous & lexicalized
autonomous syntax
rules are completely separable from words and meanings
ex: NP –> Det (adj) N
Lexicalized syntax
structures are part of the world or morpheme lexicon
Semantics
study of meaning
are words the same as meanings
NO
Fast mapping
the ability to acquire a word rapidly on the basis of minimal information.
Combinatorial meaning
meaning of a sentence is the combo of the meaning of the words and their structural (syntactic) relation
Propositional meaning
the meaning of a sentence can be evaluated with respect to its truth value (can be judged)
Do other communicative systems like music and gesture have the property of truth value?
NO
Pragmatics
The study of language use in context
context-driven inference
the ability to use context to infer intended meaning for an ambiguous signal (present in other animals)
theory of mind
-not unique to humans
the ability to conceptualize what others know (developed by age 4)
what is unique to Human pragmatic interpretation?
drive to share thoughts cooperatively
Pitch
a prominent building block of music
-how our brain perceives that frequency of a wave
can be used all by itself to form simple, but pleasing melodies that loudness or timbre cannot
Higher frequency entails what type of pitch?
higher pitch
what are the two effects of pitch and frequency?
missing fundamental & octave equivalence
The missing fundamental
when the f0 or lowest pitch is gone but can be heard when there is apparent source or component of the frequency
-this perception is due to the brain interpreting patterns that are present
Spectrogram graph
x-axis: time
y-axis: frequency
Frequency spectrum
lists the frequency bands and ranges in the sound spectrum
Harmonics
Overtones or lower frequencies
a wave or signal whose frequency is an integral (whole number) multiple of the frequency of the same reference signal or wave.
what is the pitch between 540, 640, and 740 hz?
100
Is the missing fundamental actually missing?
No, our brain fills up the info that is missing
Ex of an Octave
an interval between two tones with a ratio 2:1 where the higher tone is double the frequency of the lower
Why do octave notes sound the same?
sounds the same due to the harmonics
How do harmonics work?
-they are multiples on the fundamental
-notes an octave apart have harmonics that align
- but higher tones have more sparse harmonics
Octave
a special pitch interval where the harmonics maximally line up
What are the two dimensions of pitch perception?
height & chroma
Height
as frequency increases the tone gets higher
ex: increase in frequency = increase in pitch
Chroma
at every doubling of frequency the tone appears to return to an equivalent “note”
What is transposition ability?
ability to easily recognize a tune, even though the original pitches were not there
ex: knowing what song is playing though the pitch was x2 higher
Is octave equivalence universal ?
INFANTS are sensitive to it and don’t have much musical experience
-they are more surprised by the shifts that are not octave based
-suggests its something we don’t have to learn through experience
- people with no exposure to western music also show octave equivalence
Do all species hear octave-spaecd tones as equivalent?
NO
What does consonant mean?
how pleasing a sound is, harmonious
what does dissonant mean?
not a pleasing sound, disharmonious
What is timbre
aka tone/tone color
the perceptual correlate of harmonic structure
adds color and texture
important in recognizing sound identity (not pitch)
is timbre a foundational building block of music?
NO
Loudness
amplitude of the sound pressure of the wave
-correlated with intensity or arousal level of emotion and can define rhythms
TRUE OR FALSE : Humans and monkeys both have zero lag when predicting the timing of a song
FALSE only humans have a zero lag
TRUE OR FALSE: Very few can synchronize to a beat or extract a beat from a complex rhythm
TRUE
ex: humans moving our body to the beat of a song
Melody
when other musical elements come together particularly pitch & rhythm
How does bat song compare to bird song?
at least in some species they have equal complexity
Which of the following is not dependent on vocal production learning?
calls