Chapter 4 - Music Perception and Cognition

Abstract

This chapter explores the multifaceted field of music perception and cognition from an ecological perspective as the interrelationship between composer, performer, and listener. Music is a process of communication among different behavioral systems; this process should be the central focus of an ecological psychology of music, involving the relations among composer, performer, and listener. The essential territory of music perception and cognition research is the empirical confirmation and disconfirmation of hypothesized relationships among the frames of reference involved in musical communication. Mood responses to music are often operationalized by adjective checklists or the semantic differential. Mood associations are broadly gauged, relatively imprecise, and vary greatly from individual to individual. The study of the process of musical communication among composer, performer, and listener is perhaps the best manifestation of ecologically valid research in music perception and cognition. The use of ecologically valid contexts stimuli has become commonplace as the technology for the manipulation of music has made extraordinary advances. Future studies must concentrate on musical meanings—including affective, emotive, aesthetic, and cultural.