Auditory expectation: The information dynamics of music perception and cognition (original) (raw)
2012, Topics in Cognitive Science
Following in a psychological and musicological tradition beginning with Leonard Meyer, and continuing through David Huron, we present a functional, cognitive account of the phenomenon of expectation in music, grounded in computational, probabilistic modeling. We summarize a range of evidence for this approach, from psychology, neuroscience, musicology, linguistics, and creativity studies, and argue that simulating expectation is an important part of understanding a broad range of human faculties, in music and beyond.
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An empirical exploration of the zygonic model of expectation in music
Psychology of Music, 2012
Aspects of the 'zygonic' model of expectation in music were tested experimentally. Forty subjects were played a diatonic melody, starting with the initial note only, then the first two notes, and so on. Each time, subjects were asked to sing what they considered to be the most likely continuation. The results were compared with the outputs of three algorithms derived from the zygonic model, which took into account adjacency ('Z1'), adjacency and recency ('Z2'), and adjacency, recency, and between-group projections ('Z3'). Each algorithm modelled the perceptual responses with statistically distinct degrees of accuracy; Z3 was the most faithful to subjects' expectations. Given the empirical data, potential refinements to the quantification of the zygonic model were considered. Additionally, it was found that men and women exhibited different patterns of expectation in relation to the stimuli that were presented, paralleling recent neuropsychological data suggesting that the location of music-structural processing in the brain may differ by gender.
A Practical Investigation of Expectation in Acousmatic Music
The experience of expectation within acousmatic music is regarded as problematic because the electronic mediation of sound permits and even encourages composers to combine and integrate sounds of widely varying origins that may carry equally divergent aesthetic implications. Because of this, the compositional management of expectation in acousmatic music presents many challenges beyond those found in Western tonal music where familiar musical grammar assists the listener in comprehending the tensions and implications that contribute to expectation. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the nature of expectation within acousmatic music by means of a practice-based methodology. The composition portfolio itself has led to two new frameworks being proposed. The first, acousmatic skip-diving, provides a method for the ad hoc evaluation of materials and their interactions in situations where large numbers of existing sound materials are available. The second framework – sonic evidence – is based on some of the fundamental principles of forensic science and crime scene investigation. While not derived from my compositional practice, this reflection on the practical outcomes of the research is intended as a useful tool for the listener or musicologist to consider future development of events in a piece of music in terms of expectations aroused. While this study was never intended to provide a definitive answer to the issues surrounding expectation in acousmatic music, it has further illuminated the challenges facing listeners when attempting to anticipate events within a work, and how composers may create moments of surprise within their music. Furthermore, the ideas explored within the dissertation provide important building blocks through which further examination of expectation within the genre may take place.
Expectations Evoked on Hearing a Piece of Music for the First Time: Evidence from a Musical Savant
Empirical Musicology Review, 2014
The purpose of this study is to investigate a hitherto unresearched feature of the "zygonic" model of implication and expectation in music: in particular, the projections that stem from recently appearing groups of notes (Ockelford, 2006). Using an innovative approach, data were gathered from a prodigious musical savant (Derek Paravicini), who attempted to reproduce a novel composition on the piano at the same time as hearing it. The piece was designed to minimise the impact of expectations that may arise from patterns within groups of notes and those that may be perceived as a consequence of tonality, whereby different pitch transitions are felt to occur with different probabilities according to their level of past exposure. The design of the study was informed by zygonic theory (Ockelford, 2009, 2012b), which holds that expectation in music is attributable to the capacity of structural regularities to suggest future continuations, whose perceived likelihood of occurrence, it is believed, is proportional to the number of ways in which their existence is implied in what has gone before. Using this principle, a "strength of implication" factor was calculated for each note of the stimulus piece (following the first). It was hypothesised that the higher the implication factor, the more likely Derek would predict its occurrence (and therefore play it correctly at the appropriate point in time). Data gathered from Derek's performance support the underlying principles of the zygonic model, although they also suggest certain refinements.
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