Aspects Of Pitch Research Articles

Characterization of early communicative behavior in mouse models of neurofibromatosis type 1.

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a common neurogenetic disorder caused by mutation of the NF1 gene, in which 80% of affected children exhibit cognitive and behavioral issues. Based on emerging evidence that NF1 may be an autism predisposition gene, we examined autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-relevant early communicative behavior in Nf1 mouse models and observed alterations in both models. The changes in early communicative behavior in Nf1 mutant mice should motivate further studies into the causative factors and potential treatments for ASD arising in the context of NF1.

Compression-based Modelling of Musical Similarity Perception

Similarity is an important concept in music cognition research since the similarity between (parts of) musical pieces determines perception of stylistic categories and structural relationships between parts of musical works. The purpose of the present research is to develop and test models of musical similarity perception inspired by a transformational approach which conceives of similarity between two perceptual objects in terms of the complexity of the cognitive operations required to transform the representation of the first object into that of the second, a process which has been formulated in information-theoretic terms. Specifically, computational simulations are developed based on compression distance in which a probabilistic model is trained on one piece of music and then used to predict, or compress, the notes in a second piece. The more predictable the second piece according to the model, the more efficiently it can be encoded and the greater the similarity between the two pieces. The present research extends an existing information-theoretic model of auditory expectation (IDyOM) to compute compression distances varying in symmetry and normalisation using high-level symbolic features representing aspects of pitch and rhythmic structure. Comparing these compression distances with listeners’ similarity ratings between pairs of melodies collected in three experiments demonstrates that the compression-based model provides a good fit to the data and allows the identification of representations, model parameters and compression-based metrics that best account for musical similarity perception. The compression-based model also shows comparable performance to the best-performing algorithms on the MIREX 2005 melodic similarity task.

1316 ノズルピッチアスペクト比が複数長方形噴流の発達に及ぼす影響 : 平均速度場の変化(流体工学VI)

1316 ノズルピッチアスペクト比が複数長方形噴流の発達に及ぼす影響 : 平均速度場の変化(流体工学VI)

Tone-language speakers show hemispheric specialization and differential cortical processing of contour and interval cues for pitch

Electrophysiological studies demonstrate that the neural coding of pitch is modulated by language experience and the linguistic relevance of the auditory input; both rightward and leftward asymmetries have been observed in the hemispheric specialization for pitch. In music, pitch is encoded using two primary features: contour (patterns of rises and falls) and interval (frequency separation between tones) cues. Recent evoked potential studies demonstrate that these “global” (contour) and “local” (interval) aspects of pitch are processed automatically (but bilaterally) in trained musicians. Here, we examined whether alternate forms of pitch expertise, namely, tone-language experience (i.e., Chinese), influence the early detection of contour and intervallic deviations within ongoing pitch sequences. Neuroelectric mismatch negativity (MMN) potentials were recorded in Chinese speakers and English-speaking nonmusicians in response to continuous pitch sequences with occasional global or local deviations in the ongoing melodic stream. This paradigm allowed us to explore potential cross-language differences in the hemispheric weighting for contour and interval processing of pitch. Chinese speakers showed differential pitch encoding between hemispheres not observed in English listeners; Chinese MMNs revealed a rightward bias for contour processing but a leftward hemispheric laterality for interval processing. In contrast, no asymmetries were observed in the English group. Collectively, our findings suggest tone-language experience sensitizes auditory brain mechanisms for the detection of subtle global/local pitch changes in the ongoing auditory stream and exaggerates functional asymmetries in pitch processing between cerebral hemispheres.

Music Cognition: A Developmental Perspective

Although music is universal, there is a great deal of cultural variability in music structures. Nevertheless, some aspects of music processing generalize across cultures, whereas others rely heavily on the listening environment. Here, we discuss the development of musical knowledge, focusing on four themes: (a) capabilities that are present early in development; (b) culture-general and culture-specific aspects of pitch and rhythm processing; (c) age-related changes in pitch perception; and (d) developmental changes in how listeners perceive emotion in music.

Aspects of Voice Measurement with Young Users of Cochlear Implants

This brief study has two essential aims. First, it is directed toward the measurement of changes in voice control that may be consequent on the overnight deactivation of cochlear implants (CIs) by individual young children in a residential school for the deaf. Second, the work is based on the exploratory use of a set of voice analytic procedures that, although developed in the first instance for work on connected speech with hearing-impaired children, have subsequently been applied extensively in voice clinic environments. Acoustic and electrolaryngograph speech recordings have been made and analyzed for a group of children with CIs, early in the morning with acoustic and CI aids switched off and at the end of a normal day's use. Special attention has been paid to the analysis of perceptually relevant physical aspects of pitch, intonation, and voice quality. Differences in voice control between these conditions of implant use have been found for all of the children.

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.

A comparison of native speaker and American adult learner Vietnamese lexical tones

This study introduces a modification of the traditional carrier sentence elicitation task, provides new native speaker data regarding aspects of pitch and voice quality in Vietnamese lexical tones, and provides an empirical description of non-native speaker errors in tone production. Participants produce a series of three-word utterances in response to target words that appear individually on a computer screen in one of four colors. In this way, participants actively describe a changing event, while critical components remain constant: the identity of the word preceding the target, the target position (utterance medial), and the target's focus structure. Native speaker results are consistent with existing descriptions of fundamental frequency contours and creakiness. In addition, they provide evidence supporting claims that breathiness can occur in two different tones: the falling tone (huyen) and curve tone (hoi). Non-native speaker results suggest that adult learners struggle with voice quality distinctions and pitch shape.

A Gesture-based Typology of Sliding-tones in Guqin Music

A good part of the expressive character of traditional Chinese guqin music can be accounted for in terms of sliding-tones, of which vibrato and portamento form major constituents. In this paper, a representative performance of a guqin piece formed the starting point for identifying an alphabet of basic movements on top of which it was possible to define different vibrato and portamento gesture types. The methodology is based on a pitch analysis of the musical audio and a subsequent segmentation and categorization of the pitch patterns which draws upon the player's knowledge of guqin playing. The typology focuses on the morphological aspects of pitch and control gestures, and it allows a description of sliding-tones in terms of concatenations of basic movements of the finger on the string. The close relationship between control gestures and pitch patterns justifies the use of the term “gesture” for both sonic and control patterns, although sonic gestures do not always completely overlap with control gestures. The present paper is a first attempt at an identification and classification of the gestures that make up guqin vibrato and portamento. The approach offers opportunities for future testing, using measurement tools and experimental techniques. The applications of this typology in education and sound synthesis are straightforward.

Bakhtin and the discourse of late medieval music theory

In his lucid discussion of genre in medieval treatises on music, Lawrence Gushee states that: The main part of Gushee's discussion is taken up with documents written up to the thirteenth century; for that reason he pays only a brief visit to treatises written thereafter, recognizing, however, a generic category in ‘works of the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries which can be classed together merely by virtue of their size and synthetic character’. Among these he counts the treatises of Jacques de Liège, Walter Odington, Engelbert of Admont, Marchettus of Padua and Jerome of Moravia. One could add a few others to this list, such as the Tractatus de musica of Magister Lambertus and the work largely derived from that one, the Quatuor principalia musicae. These are ‘synthetic’, to use Gushee's word, in that they attempt a comprehensive treatment of their subject – they cover both theoretical and practical aspects of pitch and rhythm, and usually begin with a mythic/historic overview of music and a classification scheme that situates it within the sphere of other disciplines.

Rapport Entre la Hauteur Et Le Fondamental D'un Son Musical

It is well known that pitch in a musical sense, and pitch as a psychological attribute of sound, are not linearly correlated. On the other hand a great deal of discussion is still going on concerning the physiological basis of pitch perception, various mechanisms having been proposed.The experience here related, undertaken at the “groupe de recherches musicales” of O.R.T.F., Paris, is a first attempt of investigation of the interplay between the two above mentioned aspects of pitch. We feel that this kind of data will also throw some light on the physiological mechanism of pitch perception.Observers were placed in a musical context by the type of stimuli chosen: a set of 64 instrumental notes covering a wide variety of musical timbres, and ranging in pitch between Eflat1 (f = 38.8 cps) and Gflat7 (f = 2959 cps). These sounds were presented either in their original form or filtered. Each sound was repeated three times, each time followed by a reference sound bearing a simple octave relation with it, such g...

Temporal and pitch aspects of superior esophageal speech.

Temporal and pitch aspects of superior esophageal speech.