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Re: Difference between cognition and perception? long - <sigh>

Vincent Rioux vincent.rioux@NO-LOG.ORG wrote:



 - Moreover (consequently?) there has been some kind of controversies
 around the work of Schaeffer. What is his status today after all,
 scientist? composer? philosopher? "maitre penser"?


In my experience, outside of higher academic circles, within the UK,
the USA, Australia and much of Canada, the text is un-read and it is
largely a(n obscure) historical reference.


------------------------------

Martin Braun nombraun@TELIA.COM wrote:



 >The reason for the dominance of the perception concept in music is that
 >here cognition is not needed.

I find that music 'perception' <sic> is not linear. It is not:
    stimulus > analysis > response
rather
   stimulus > storage (*) > analysis > response

The (*) storage (a memory matrix?) is some form of temporal 'window'.
Rather than 'patterns' being used in the analysis, I prefer to
consider templates -- see below.




 Interestingly, it does not always add to the joy of music. A piece that
 strikes many of your "cognitive" notes can easily be much less interesting
 than one that strikes no "cognitive" notes at all.

I read this as being an operational definition of the word
'interesting', making 'interesting' perceptual rather than cognitive.



 If you hear a traditional Bulgarian women choir for the first time, the
 "contribution of cognitive processes" may be close to zero, because you
 might not know any word at all of the alien musical "language".

To me it seems that this assumes that 'you' (a) have never heard a
female voice, (b) have never heard secundal harmony, and (c) have
never heard bagpipes. (Ah!! Bulgarian women choirs are formed of
aliens ... that explains the group Dragana-Montreal.)

-------------------------------------

Odd Torleiv Furnes <o.t.furnes@HF.UIO.NO>


 First of all, it is very unlikely that you will ever encounter any music
 that does not incorporate some sort of melodic, harmonic or rhythmic
 pattern that you are familiar with.

Unless you are, say, six weeks old. Which will quickly bring us to
the place of 'learning' with regards to music, and as to whether
learning has cognitive elements ... but that is for later.



 Second, as the prime aspect of listening to music probably is that
of pattern
 detection, memory

I prefer template as the term as it avoids reference to
'non-repeating patterns'.



 Thirdly, given that listening to music involves a process of pattern
 comparison

I think this begs the question about the nature of a pattern. I have
never heard the wind the same way twice, so I prefer to talk about
the sound of wind as being stochastically limited. IMV, by extension,
this refers back to windowing events, and the "non-linearity of the
interpretation of stimulus" (= cognitive function?).

(A side thread here regarding the classification of noises is that of
families of sounds.)


------------------------------

Eliot Handelman eliot@GENERATION.NET wrote:



 I agree that no one NEEDS
 to know this kind of detail in order to enjoy music. Indeed students
 taking music appreciation courses, who must be examined on this sort
 of lifeless grind, often feel that it detracts from the emotion and
 mystery that they otherwise experience in music.

This is explored deeply in literature -- it is about not wanting to
give up the innocence of youth.




 THE prime aspect of listening to music is the fact that it has affective
 significance.

For me, music is the elephant and the nine blind people -- very
different things to each person. I am not prepared to attempt a
unified-field theory for 'music'. I have found that the more I study,
the larger the universe becomes, the greater the awe.



------------------------------

Odd Torleiv Furnes o.t.furnes@HF.UIO.NO continued



 There are a lot of things we don't know for a fact when it comes to music,
 but that pattern detection is prior to affection seems to me to be rather
 obvious.

As is perhaps demonstrated by people who do not have the facility to
detect the patterns, and therefore do not experience the 'affect'.


------------------------------

Eric Scheirer eds@MEDIA.MIT.EDU wrote:



 I think it is definitely not obvious that pulse detection is cognitive.
 And in particular, the statement that "the perception of any temporal
 relation must involve memory" I think is not true.

Is memory a time-shift device?
and therefore,
Is this a proposition that temporal relationships exist outside of time?
and
Does music <sic> exist outside of time?
Does anything exist outside of time?
(What is time?)

Charles Ives: "Music is what remains after the sound is gone."




 For example, pitch
 is a temporal phenomenon, as it is the perceptual correlate of frequency,
 which depends in an essential manner on temporal aspects of sound.

<challenge mode _ON_>

Everything in sound is temporal.

<challenge mode _OFF_>



 It is quite possible to construct a model [1] in which no cognitive
 interrelationships between "events" or "notes" is necessary to explain
 pulse perception.

While this may be true of machine detection, my experience in
teaching people says this may not be so.


Best

Kevin



A Sufi poem relates:

The lover's hair is usually curly.
You see just the hair,
But I see the curl of the hair.
You see the eyebrow,
But I see the crescent of the eyebrow.
You see what is on the surface,
But I see the underlying form.