Subject: Re: Height and pitch From: John Neuhoff <jneuhoff(at)WOOSTER.EDU> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:49:59 -0500I would agree that the relationship between pitch and vertical height probably has a lot to do music education and expertise. However, I would be skeptical about this being germane only to western music. In fact, we have shown that many western listeners without musical training do not have a good grasp of what "up" and "down" actually mean as they pertain to pitch. See: Neuhoff, J.G., Knight, R. & Wayand, J. (2002). Musicians, Non-Musicians, and the Perception of Pitch Change: Which Way is Up? Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Auditory Display, Kyoto, Japan. http://pages.wooster.edu/jneuhoff/PitchChange.pdf Also, there is a smaller population of listeners for which any type of musical training would not appear to provide any benefit. See: I. Peretz, J. Ayotte, R. Zatorre, J. Mehler, P. Ahad, V. Penhune, and B. Jutras, "Congenital Amusia: A Disorder of Fine-Grained Pitch Discrimination," Neuron, vol. 33, pp. 185-191, 2002. -John ________________________________ John G. Neuhoff Department of Psychology The College of Wooster Wooster, OH 44691 Phone: 330-263-2475 Fax: 928-244-5577 http://pages.wooster.edu/jneuhoff/ > -----Original Message----- > From: AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception > [mailto:AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Andrew D Lyons > Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 7:39 PM > To: AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA > Subject: Height and pitch > > > Hi, > > I have come across a paper that suggests that the > relationship between pitch and vertical height has more to do > with western music education than some universal spatial > cognitive strategy: > > Walker, R. The effects of culture, environment, age, and > musical training on choice of visual metaphors for sound. > Perception & Psychophysics, 42(5):491--502, November 1987. > > Can anybody comment on the idea that cultures that are not > educated in the western music tradition tend to make random > selections in relation to the relationship between pitch and height? > > Cheers > > ========================================================== > Andrew D Lyons | Time Space Texture | http://www.tstex.com > ========================================================== >