Music cognition and the cognitive psychology of film structure.

Early 20th century psychologists drew attention to similarities between mental processes elicited by film and by music. Contemporary film theorists have also noted analogous film and music structures, and contemporary psychologists have used musical metaphors in discussions of film perception and cognition. These psychological parallels have not been explored through experimental research, in part, because of scarce experimental psychological research on film in contrast to the vast amount on music. The present article proposes that music cognition research provides insight into the perception of formal structure in film, taking as support an analysis of the film The Red Violin. The analysis reveals similarities between film and music with respect to 3 kinds of musical structure: central reference (tonality), large-scale form (rondo), and small-scale form (motif). Experiments are proposed to reveal the similarity in the mental processes engaged by music and film for each of the three types of structure, respectively. The application of principles and methods of music cognition to film psychology supports the intuitions of early psychological film theorists. The approach also generalizes to other art forms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: Different channels, same code?

Many authors have speculated about a close relationship between vocal expression of emotions and musical expression of emotions, but evidence bearing on this relationship has unfortunately been lacking. This review of 104 studies of vocal expression and 41 studies of music performance reveals similarities between the 2 channels concerning (a) the accuracy with which discrete emotions were communicated to listeners and (b) the emotion-specific patterns of acoustic cues used to communicate each emotion. The patterns are generally consistent with K. R. Scherer's (1986) theoretical predictions. The results can explain why music is perceived as expressive of emotion, and they are consistent with an evolutionary perspective on vocal expression of emotions. Discussion focuses on theoretical accounts and directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of emotional expression in musical performance.

Expression in musical performance is largely communicated by the manner in which a piece is played; interpretive aspects that supplement the written score. In piano performance, timing and amplitude are the principal parameters the performer can vary. We examined the way in which such variation serves to communicate emotion by manipulating timing and amplitude in performances of classical piano pieces. Over three experiments, listeners rated the emotional expressivity of performances and their manipulated versions. In Experiments 1 and 2, timing and amplitude information were covaried; judgments were monotonically decreasing with performance variability, demonstrating that the rank ordering of acoustical manipulations was captured by participants' responses. Further, participants' judgments formed an S-shaped (sigmoidal) function in which greater sensitivity was seen for musical manipulations in the middle of the range than at the extremes. In Experiment 3, timing and amplitude were manipulated independently; timing variation was found to provide more expressive information than did amplitude. Across all three experiments, listeners demonstrated sensitivity to the expressive cues we manipulated, with sensitivity increasing as a function of musical experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading and language processing: An introduction.

Introduces this special issue of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, which is devoted to reading and language processing, an area that has been central to the study of human cognition since the inception of modern cognitive psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Caroline Palmer.

Acknowledges Caroline Palmer for pioneering research in music cognition and performance. Her skillful studies on sound patterns produced by musicians extended our understanding of the way complex sound patterns communicate information and expressive meaning. She has combined technical skills with a knowledge of music, acoustics, and psychology to reveal a previously hidden world of finely crafted dynamic patterns used by musicians to influence listeners. A citation, biography, and selected bibliography of Palmer's works are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between instrumental musical activity and cognitive aging.

Objective: Intensive repetitive musical practice can lead to bilateral cortical reorganization. However, whether musical sensorimotor and cognitive abilities transfer to nonmusical cognitive abilities that are maintained throughout the life span is unclear. In an attempt to identify modifiable lifestyle factors that may potentially enhance successful aging, we evaluated the association between musical instrumental participation and cognitive aging. Method: Seventy older healthy adults (ages 60–83) varying in musical activity completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. The groups (nonmusicians, low and high activity musicians) were matched on age, education, history of physical exercise, while musicians were matched on age of instrumental acquisition and formal years of musical training. Musicians were classified in the low (1–9 years) or high (>10 years) activity group based on years of musical experience throughout their life span. Results: The results of this preliminary study revealed that participants with at least 10 years of musical experience (high activity musicians) had better performance in nonverbal memory (η2 = .106), naming (η2 = .103), and executive processes (η2 = .131) in advanced age relative to nonmusicians. Several regression analyses evaluated how years of musical activity, age of acquisition, type of musical training, and other variables predicted cognitive performance. Conclusions: These correlational results suggest a strong predictive effect of high musical activity throughout the life span on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age. A discussion of how musical participation may enhance cognitive aging is provided along with other alternative explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory.

Attentional control theory is an approach to anxiety and cognition representing a major development of Eysenck and Calvo's (1992) processing efficiency theory. It is assumed that anxiety impairs efficient functioning of the goal-directed attentional system and increases the extent to which processing is influenced by the stimulus-driven attentional system. In addition to decreasing attentional control, anxiety increases attention to threat-related stimuli. Adverse effects of anxiety on processing efficiency depend on two central executive functions involving attentional control: inhibition and shifting. However, anxiety may not impair performance effectiveness (quality of performance) when it leads to the use of compensatory strategies (e.g., enhanced effort; increased use of processing resources). Directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory Feedback in Music Performance: The Role of Melodic Structure and Musical Skill.

Five experiments explored whether fluency in musical sequence production relies on matches between the contents of auditory feedback and the planned outcomes of actions. Participants performed short melodies from memory on a keyboard while musical pitches that sounded in synchrony with each keypress (feedback contents) were altered. Results indicated that altering pitch contents can disrupt production, but only when altered pitches form a sequence that is structurally similar to the planned sequence. These experiments also addressed the role of musical skill: Experiments 1 and 3 included trained pianists; other experiments included participants with little or no musical training. Results were similar across both groups with respect to the disruptive effects of auditory feedback manipulations. These results support the idea that a common hierarchical representation guides sequences of actions and the perception of event sequences and that this coordination is not acquired from learned associations formed by musical skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for cognition, task difficulty, and the formation of performance expectancies.

In the present article, the authors analyze how performance expectancies are generated and how they affect actual performance. The authors predicted that task difficulty would affect performance expectancies only when cognitive motivation (i.e., need for cognition [NFC]) and cognitive capacity are high. This should be the case because analyzing task difficulty is a process requiring cognitive capacity as well as cognitive motivation. The findings supported the expected NFC × Difficulty interaction for the formation of performance expectancies (Study 1, Study 2), but only when cognitive capacity was high (Study 2). The authors also predicted that expectancies would affect actual performance only if the task is difficult and if task difficulty is taken into account when the expectancy is generated. This hypothesis was supported: Significant relations between performance expectancies and actual performance were found only for difficult tasks and for participants higher in NFC. Studies 5 and 6 showed clear evidence that the NFC × Difficulty interaction could not be explained by differences in the use of task-specific self-concepts. The findings were robust across academic, social, and physical tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual Tests of an Algorithm for Musical Key-Finding.

Perceiving the tonality of a musical passage is a fundamental aspect of the experience of hearing music. Models for determining tonality have thus occupied a central place in music cognition research. Three experiments investigated 1 well-known model of tonal determination: the Krumhansl-Schmuckler key-finding algorithm. In Experiment 1, listeners' percepts of tonality following short musical fragments derived from preludes by Bach and Chopin were compared with predictions of tonality produced by the algorithm; these predictions were very accurate for the Bach preludes but considerably less so for the Chopin preludes. Experiment 2 explored a subset of the Chopin preludes, finding that the algorithm could predict tonal percepts on a measure-by-measure basis. In Experiment 3, the algorithm predicted listeners' percepts of tonal movement throughout a complete Chopin prelude. These studies support the viability of the Krumhansl-Schmuckler key-finding algorithm as well as a model of listeners' tonal perceptions of musical passages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decoding Speech Prosody: Do Music Lessons Help?

Three experiments revealed that music lessons promote sensitivity to emotions conveyed by speech prosody. After hearing semantically neutral utterances spoken with emotional (i.e., happy, sad, fearful, or angry) prosody, or tone sequences that mimicked the utterances' prosody, participants identified the emotion conveyed. In Experiment 1 (n=20), musically trained adults performed better than untrained adults. In Experiment 2 (n=56), musically trained adults outperformed untrained adults at identifying sadness, fear, or neutral emotion. In Experiment 3 (n=43), 6-year-olds were tested after being randomly assigned to 1 year of keyboard, vocal, drama, or no lessons. The keyboard group performed equivalently to the drama group and better than the no-lessons group at identifying anger or fear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A study in language and cognition.

"The Whorf thesis on the relationship between language and thought is found to involve the following two propositions: (a) Different linguistic communities perceive and conceive reality in different ways. (b) The language spoken in a community helps to shape the cognitive structure of the individuals speaking that language… . An experiment is described which investigates a part of proposition (a)—the idea that lexical differences are indicative of cognitive differences." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalized signaling for control: Evidence from postconflict and posterror performance adjustments.

Goal-directed behavior requires cognitive control to effect online adjustments in response to ongoing processing demands. How signaling for these adjustments occurs has been a question of much interest. A basic question regarding the architecture of the cognitive control system is whether such signaling for control is specific to task context or generalizes across contexts. In this study, the authors explored this issue using a stimulus–response compatibility paradigm. They examined trial-to-trial adjustments, specifically, the findings that incompatible trials elicit improved performance on subsequent incompatible trials and that responses are slower after errors. The critical question was, Do such control effects—typically observed within a single task context—occur across task contexts? The paradigm involved 2 orthogonal, stimulus–response sets: Stimuli in the horizontal direction mapped only to responses in the horizontal direction, and likewise for the vertical direction. Cues indicated that either compatible (same direction as stimulus) or incompatible (opposite to stimulus) responses were required. The results showed that trial-to-trial adjustments exist for both direction-repeat and direction-switch trials, demonstrating that signaling for control adjustments can extend beyond the task context within which they arise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Computation and cognition: Toward a foundation for cognitive science.

Reviews the book, Computation and cognition: Toward a foundation for cognitive science by Zenon W. Pylyshyn (see record 1986-97211-000). Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mind based on a computational conception of mind. Computation and cognition is a presentation of Zenon Pylyshyn's position on just what a computational conception of mind is and should be. In the course of the exegesis, the basic, often implicit, assumptions of cognitive science are revealed, and the enterprise as a whole is placed on firm ground. The book is difficult but important. The reviewer cannot recommend it to the intelligent layman. However, it is a book that should be read by cognitive scientists and others with a deep interest in the possibility of a computational view of mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the specificity of face cognition compared with general cognitive functioning across adult age.

Face cognition is considered a specific human ability, clearly differentiable from general cognitive functioning. Its specificity is primarily supported by cognitive-experimental and neuroimaging research, but recently also from an individual differences perspective. However, no comprehensive behavioral data are available, which would allow estimating lifespan changes of the covariance structure of face-cognition abilities and general cognitive functioning as well as age-differences in face cognition after accounting for interindividual variability in general cognition. The present study aimed to fill this gap. In an age-heterogeneous (18–82 years) sample of 448 adults, we found no factorial dedifferentiation between face cognition and general cognition. Age-related differences in face memory were still salient after taking into account changes in general cognitive functioning. Face cognition thus remains a specific human ability compared with general cognition, even until old age. We discuss implications for models of cognitive aging and suggest that it is necessary to include more explicitly special social abilities in those models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in self-assessed health: An information-processing investigation of health and illness cognition.

In 2 studies, the relation between measures of self-assessed health (SAH) and automatic processing of health-relevant information was investigated. In Study 1, 84 male and 86 female undergraduate students completed a modified Stroop task. Results indicated that participants with poorer SAH showed enhanced interference effects for illness versus non-illness words. In Study 2, 27 male and 30 female undergraduate students completed a self-referent encoding task. Results offered a conceptual replication and extension of Study 1 by confirming the specificity of the relation between SAH measures and automatic processing of health (vs negative or positive general trait) information. These studies provide evidence that individual differences in SAH are reflected in schematic processing of health-relevant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Metacognition, cognition, and human performance.

Reviews the book, Metacognition, cognition, and human performance edited by D. L. Forrest-Pressley, G. E. MacKinnon, and T. Gary Waller (1985). This collection is the second of two volumes devoted to metacognition, cognition, and human performance. In volume 1 emphasis was placed on basic theoretical issues in metacognition; volume 2 deals with the application of metacognitive principles to the fields of education and clinical remediation. Overall, I found the volume quite informative and indeed enjoyable. All contributions were of excellent quality, and presented active engaging research in the field, with the authors borrowing extensively from their own and their students' work. The research reported is permeated by vitality, ingenuity of methodology, and, to varying degrees, good linkages to other areas such as developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, social learning theory, and educational theory. This reviewer, however, was disappointed by the obvious omission of Piagetian theory from the theoretical conceptualizations of the various sub-areas of metacognition offered here. A second concern I had was with the relative lack of cohesiveness in the volume, with the inevitable repetitions across chapters. Although the editors' preface provides a summary of each chapter, it does not attempt to integrate the volume. Thus we end up with a collection of papers in the field but know little about how they fit in the overall scheme of things metacognitive. The volume will certainly be of value to basic researchers in cognitive, social, and developmental psychology. It would also be of particular relevance to child clinical psychologists, special educators, and teachers for the wealth of ideas it provides for implementation not only with LD but also with socio-affectively disturbed, mentally retarded, and culturally disadvantaged children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking about oneself and others: The relational-interdependent self-construal and social cognition.

These studies focus on the relational-interdependent self-construal's association with implicit or indirect cognitive processes. In the relational-interdependent self-construal, the self is defined largely in terms of close relationships, resulting in variation in self-related processes. In Studies 1 and 2, the relational self-construal was associated with positive implicit evaluations of relational concepts and with tightly organized cognitive networks of relational terms. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that this self-construal was associated with memory for and implicit organization of relational information. In Studies 5 and 6, the relational self-construal was positively related to the degree to which participants described themselves and a friend similarly. The implications of the relational self-construal for theories of relationship cognition and for other self-related cognitive processes are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition: Beyond 1/?α fluctuation.

It has been suggested that human behavior in general and cognitive performance in particular emerge from coordination between multiple temporal scales. In this article, we provide quantitative support for such a theory of interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition by using wavelet-based multifractal analysis and accompanying multiplicative cascading process on the response series of 4 different cognitive tasks: simple response, word naming, choice decision, and interval estimation. Results indicated that the major portion of these response series had multiplicative interactions between temporal scales, visible as intermittent periods of large and irregular fluctuations (i.e., a multifractal structure). Comparing 2 component-dominant models of 1/fα fluctuations in cognitive performance with the multiplicative cascading process indicated that the multifractal structure could not be replicated by these component-dominant models. Furthermore, a similar multifractal structure was shown to be present in a model of self-organized criticality in the human nervous system, similar to a spatial extension of the multiplicative cascading process. These results illustrate that a wavelet-based multifractal analysis and the multiplicative cascading process form an appropriate framework to characterize interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition. This new framework goes beyond the identification of 1/fα power laws and non-Gaussian distributions in response series as used in previous studies. The present article provides quantitative support for a paradigm shift toward interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)