Re: sometimes behave so strangely

[Peter Lennox <P.Lennox@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ah! good point...
 -but we are pretty used to listening to repeated musical phrases - I
mean, music is, by nature, built out of nested repetitions (opinion)`   
l think speech is much more immediate. In fact, a repetitious speech (I
don't mean repetitive) is often hard to listen to, and we talk about
someone 'droning on'. admittedly, some people say the sme about some
music - especially process music. But I think if the music didn't change
at all, we might begin to treat it as 'noise'. So I wonder if there is
likely to emerge a stage where the repeated phrase 'comes out the other
side' and gradually ceases to be musical any more?
regards
ppl

>>> "Al Bregman" <al.bregman@xxxxxxxxx> 13/12/2006 19:29 >>>
Hi Peter,

You wrote:
"on repetition, there's no new semantic content,
> and so semantic content slips down the priority list, allowing other
> characteristics to move up in priority),"

But with repetition, there is no new musical information either.  Why
doesn't the musical content slip down the priority list too?

Regards,

Al
----------------------------

On 12/13/06, Peter Lennox <P.Lennox@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear all,
> Without wanting to drag this away from the semantic content question
> (though I'd think that, on repetition, there's no new semantic
content,
> and so semantic content slips down the priority list, allowing other
> characteristics to move up in priority), this reminds me that
whenever
> recordings of real world sounds are used in a spatial rendition, if
they
> are looped, they gradually become perceptible as 'musical'.
> Clearly this is content dependent (some sounds are more
intrinsically
> 'musical' and can be so perceived more readily) and the length of
the
> interval between repetitions seems important. sometimes, the loop
can
> feature quite a lot of disparate elements (e'g a duck at some
distance
> to the right, a hammer striking infrequently off to the left, a
> throat-clearing behind, and so on) in such a way that the repetitive
> nature for some elements becomes obvious sooner than for others.
when
> they all do, they become incorporated in a complex rythm, and (it
seems
> to me) it is then that they seem most musical.
> But on the question of how the effect endures - is this not simply
that
> once has heard it as a 'tune' it is hard to 'unhear it' as such?
> I'd be interested to know whether people can remember the 'sung'
phrase
> more accurately and /or longer than an equivalent phrase, repeated
as
> many times, but where the intonation has been randomised so that no
tune
> forms (IF such  a thing is possible...)
>
> I'm puzzled about the possible inferences in respect of 'flattening'
of
> pitch contour - are you saying that, as people hear the phrase as
more
> of a tune and less of a sentence, they also 'compress' the tune?
> regards
> ppl
> p.s - on your Mussorgsky example - I'm always puzzled that more
people
> don't hear parts of the world as musical
>
>
> Dr. Peter Lennox
> S.P.A.R.G.
> Signal Processing Applications Research Group
> University of Derby
> http://sparg.derby.ac.uk 
> Int. tel: 1775
>
> >>> Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> 13/12/2006 06:47 >>>
> Dear Al (and List),
>
> You raise some very interesting points. I don't think that the
> explanation lies in semantic satiation, because the words (vowels
and
>
> consonants) are still heard very clearly, even though the phrase
> appears to be sung. I do agree, though, that the answer lies, at
> least in part,  in the pitch modulations - though exactly what
> happens isn't clear. At the ASA meeting I presented an illustration
> showing the pitch tracing of my original rendition, and that of a
> subject repeating what she heard after multiple  repetitions. The
> contours of all  the syllables were flattened in the subject's
> rendition, and it's my strong impression that people literally begin
> to hear the contours  as flattened. I'd be happy to send this
> illustration to anyone who is interested.
>
> You also raise the point that the transformation of the phrase from
> speech to song endures - so that when people listen again to the
full
>
> sentence, I appear to burst into song. This , to my mind, is a
> particularly  puzzling aspect of the effect. People have told me
that
>
> the effect is still present, unattenuated, even months  later - and
> this was certainly my experience. As you point out, perhaps the most
> important question raised by this demonstration is why people don't
> always hear speech as song. After all,  the vowel components of
words
>
> are harmonic complexes - yet  the pitch characteristics of speech
are
>
> usually suppressed in perception.
>
> The composer Mussorggsky wrote in a letter to Rimsky-Korsokoff:
>
> 'whatever speech I hear, no matter who is speaking ... my brain
> immediately sets to working out a musical exposition for this
> speech' . On listening to his music  - particularly his song cycles
> - one can deliberately flip one's perception to a different mode,
and
>
> hear, very convincingly, the intonation of Russian speech. I've
often
>
> wondered whether Mussorgsky may have heard all speech as we hear
> 'sometimes behave so strangely' after repetition.
>
> All best,
>
> Diana
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
>
>
> Professor Diana Deutsch
> Department of Psychology
> University of California, San Diego
> 9500 Gilman Dr. #0109
> La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA
>
> 858-453-1558 (tel)
> 858-453-4763 (fax)
>
> http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch 
> http://www.philomel.com 
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 12, 2006, at 10:08 PM, Al Bregman wrote:
>
> > Dear Diana (and List),
> >
> > Yes indeed! The repetitions do seem to comvert spoken speech to
> > singing.
> >
> > I wonder whether your phenomenon isn't related to that of
"semantic
> > satiation", in which a word that is repeated over and over tends
to
> > lose its meaning and to be perceived as a sequence of sounds.  The
> > meaning is not lost in an all-or-nothing fashion, but tends to get
> > weaker and weaker.  (See
> > .http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s99/yamauchi/semantic.htm)
> >
> > In the case of your demonstration there is a strongly modulated F0
> > (intonation contour) over the phrase.  It may be that when we hear
> > ordinary speech, which contains pitch modulation (an acoustic
> > phenomenon that is present in both music and speech), the speech
and
> > musical schemas are both evoked and compete with one another.
> > However, when the cues for speech are dominant (i.e., continuous
and
> > non-repeating modulation of F0, without pausing on particular
> > pitches), the musical interpretation is suppressed.  But when the
> > phrase is repeated many times, a satiation and weakening of the
> speech
> > interpretation occurs (as in semantic satiation), thereby allowing
> the
> > musical interpretation to become more dominant.  Of course it
> doesn't
> > become completely dominant, or else we wouldn't hear speech at
all.
> > Rather there is an intermediate form of activation in which we
hear
> > both speech and music (i.e., singing).
> >
> > In your demonstration, immediately after hearing the phase as
> melodic,
> > when we listen to the whole sentence again, we still maintain an
> > association between the phrase and the melodic interpretation.  I
> > wonder how long this aftereffect lasts.
> >
> > Your demonstration raises the fascinating question of why we don't
> > ALWAYS hear speech as singing.  It may be that persons with
absolute
> > pitch come closer to this than the rest of us do, or at least can
> turn
> > it on when they want to.  A number of years ago, I asked Poppy
Crum,
> a
> > graduate student of mine who had absolute pitch, whether she could
> > assign musical note values to my intonation pattern as I said a
> > phrase.  She replied that this was easy, and gave me a sequence of
> > note names.
> >
> > Whatever the explanation of your phenomenon, it is truly
> interesting,
> > and raises some challenging questions.  I hope you yourself, or
some
> > of our colleagues, will be able to shed light on the phenomenon
> > through a series of analytical experiments.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Al
> >
> >
-------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
> > Psychology Department, McGill University
> > 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
> > Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1.
> >     Tel: (514) 484-2592, (514) 398-6103
> >     Fax: (514) 484-2592
> > www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/auditory/Home.html 
> >
-------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> > On 12/12/06, Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> Dear list,
> >>
> >>  I've had a number of requests for the sound demonstration I
> >> presented at
> >> the recent ASA meeting in Honolulu,  in which the spoken phrase
> >> 'sometimes
> >> behave so strangely'   following several repetitions, appears
> >> convincingly
> >> to be  sung rather than spoken - though there is no musical
> >> context and no
> >> physical transformation of the sound. This demonstration,
together
>
> >> with
> >> spoken commentary, is on my CD 'Phantom Words and Other
> Curiosities'
> >> (available from Philomel Records - http://www.philomel.com).
> >>
> >> The sound demonstration is also posted  on the website:
> >>
> >> http://philomel.com/phantom_words/description.html#sometimes 
> >>
> >> and it's described in the booklet accompanying the CD, which is
> >> posted at:
> >>
> >> http://philomel.com/phantom_words/booklet/ 
> >>
> >> Happy Holidays!
> >>
> >> Diana Deutsch
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > --
> >
>
>
>
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-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
Psychology Department, McGill University
1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1.
     Tel: (514) 484-2592, (514) 398-6103
     Fax: (514) 484-2592
www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/auditory/Home.html 
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