[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Two questions I was asked



Title: Re: Two questions I was asked
Dear John,

Thanks for your note. About the tritone paradox, you might want to offload our recent article:

Deutsch, D., Henthorn, T., & Dolson, M. Speech patterns heard early in life influence later perception of the tritone paradox. Music Perception, 2004, 21, 357 -372.

which is posted as a PDF document under 'Publications' on  my website  http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch

We studied perception of the tritone paradox in two groups of subjects who had come to the U.S. from Vietnam. The first group had arrived as infants or children; they now spoke perfect English but were not fluent speakers of Vietnamese. The second group had arrived in the US as adults; they spoke primarily Vietnamese but were not fluent speakers of English. We also tested a control group of native  speakers of English who were born and  grown up in California, and whose parents were also native speakers of English who were born and grown up in California. The two Vietnamese groups were strikingly similar in the way they heard the tritone paradox, and the data from both Vietnamese groups differed significantly from the 'native English-speaking Californian' group. We conclude that perception of the tritone paradox is heavily influenced by speech patterns heard early in life.

In this study we did not find evidence of  secondary humps in the plots produced by  bilingual speakers  - such as one might reasonably expect to find, and I believe were found by Magdalene Chalikia in her studies of perception of the tritone paradox by bilingual subjects. It may well be that the relative influences of the first and second languages (or dialects - since this line of reasoning applies to dialects also) depends on the nature of the languages or dialects being studied - in addition to other factors.

Concerning handedness and the octave illusion, you might  want to offload  the following two articles that are posted as PDFs on the same 'Publications' web page:

Deutsch, D. An auditory illusion.  Nature, 1974, 251, 307-309.

Deutsch, D. The octave illusion in relation to handedness and familial handedness background.  Neuropsychologia, 1983, 21, 289-293.

Both these articles show strong handedness correlates with the octave illusion. I tested for gender differences, but didn't find any.

Please let me know if you have any trouble offloading these articles, and I'll send you the PDFs directly.

Regards, and Happy New Year!

Diana Deutsch



I teach a course on DSP and music processing, in which I include a
little psychoacoustics, mainly to suggest that things are not as
simple as they might think, and to introduce a little on compression.
This year I played a few examples from Diana Deutsch's CD, and read
them some of the notes for components that need headphones, or would
take too long.

At the end of the lecture one of the students cam and asked a couple
of questions, which surprised me as particular student has not said a
word for 12 weeks.

Anyway the two questions are:
a) Related to the Tritone paradox, if the language of the listener
affects the rising or falling interpretation, what happens to
bi-lingual listeners, especially those who have been brought up as
bi-lingual?  Student in question is certainly of this kind.  I assume
the first language would dominate, but said I would ask.

b) The second question related to the effect of handedness to the
octave paradox.  Handedness has been related to brain hemisphere
dominance, and so has the gender differences.  Is there any gender
difference in this paradox?

Apologies if these are not very clear; I am not a psychologist and
this is way outside my main areas.  But I did promise the student that
I would ask.

==John ffitch

PS Student is female and Ukrainian I believe.


--
Diana Deutsch
Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology                          
University of California, San Diego            
La Jolla, CA 92093, USA

858-453-1558 (tel)
858-453-4763 (fax)

http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch
http://philomel.com