Week2.7 (universals)

Questions to consider when reading Stevens, C. and Byron, T., 2009. Universals in music processing. Oxford handbook of music psychology, pp.14-23.

• • What does 'emphasising musical processes over content' mean? Why might that be useful for the purpose of this chapter?

  • What are 'statistical universals'? Why are the authors discussing this concept?

  • Remind yourself about the grouping principles (proximity, etc.) they mention, and the ideas of gestalt psychology (We explored those last term week1.4 & week1.7).

  • When listening to music, what are examples of each of the following: simultaneous grouping, sequential grouping, segmentational grouping.

  • Explain how is it possible to have a “universal preference for musical elements that are grouped correctly, though what is defined as correct grouping may be culture-dependant.”

  • Why do they mentioned experiments with young infants as evidence of the above?

  • Discussions of perception often talk of bottom up vis. top down processes. Remind yourself what those refer to.

  • What does 'culturally narrow samples' mean?

  • They identify 9 possible candidates for universal features. Examine each one closely (e.g. #2 what are discrete pitch levels? What would be music with no discrete pitch levels.)

  • What does hierarchical organisation of music mean?

  • In both discussion of tonal and temporal hierarchies they mention studies of North Indian music, why is that useful? What might musically untrained listeners mean?

  • Expectations – what are schematic and veridical expectation and what problem do these concept aim to address?

  • What are statistical learning models?

  • What is entrainment? Can you think of a common everyday occurrence?

  • Try to explain the following to a friend: “some form of allocation of attentional resources based on the expectation of temporal information is likely to be universal.”

Additional Reading

Aspects of cross-cultural study of music are covered well by Clayton, M., Herbert, T. and Middleton, R. eds., 2003. The cultural study of music: A critical introduction. Psychology Press.