0000000001225708

AUTHOR

Stephen Mcadams

Divided attention in music

Two models have been advanced to account for the apparent ease with which attention can be divided in music: a “divided attention” model postulates that listeners effectively manage to follow two or more melodic lines played simultaneously. According to a “figure-ground model,” the harmonic coherence of Western polyphonies allows a listener to focus on one melody while staying aware of the other melody, which acts as a background. This figure-ground processing compensates for the inability to divide attention. The present study was designed to further investigate these two models. Participants were required to detect melodic errors in two familiar nursery tunes played simultaneously an octa…

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Integration of acoustical information in the perception of impacted sound sources. The role of information accuracy and exploitability.

Sound sources are perceived by integrating information from multiple acoustical features. The factors influencing the integration of information are largely unknown. We measured how the perceptual weighting of different features varies with the accuracy of information and with a listener’s ability to exploit it. Participants judged the hardness of two objects whose interaction generates an impact sound: a hammer and a sounding object. In a first discrimination experiment, trained listeners focused on the most accurate information, although with greater difficulty when perceiving the hammer. We inferred a limited exploitability for the most accurate hammer-hardness information. In a second r…

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Composition et cognition musicales : création, perception, appréciation

Ce texte est un rapport de fin de recherche issu de l'ACI cognitique.; Ce projet avait pour objet d'apporter des éléments objectifs de réflexion sur les possibilités et limites de la perception et de la compréhension des matériaux et des structures d'une oeuvre de musique contemporaine. Les buts spécifiques comprenaient l'étude : 1) des processus d'invention et de résolution de problèmes dans la composition musicale, 2) des processus de traitement perceptif et de mémorisation des matériaux musicaux, 3) du traitement perceptif et mnésique des variations ou transformations opérées sur ces matériaux et de l'intégration des matériaux et de leurs transformations dans une forme d'ensemble, 4) du …

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