1. PSYC56 Music Cognition Instructor: Mark A. Schmuckler Office: S-515 Phone: 287-7417 Email: marksch@utsc.utoronto.ca Office Hours: Thur, 1 – 2 PM, or by appointment Teaching Assistant: Dominique Vuvan Office: H-302 Phone: 287-7182 Email: dominique.vuvan@utoronto.ca Office Hours: Tues, 1 – 2 PM, or by appointment Class Time/Location: Mon, 11 – 1, SY115 Web:www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~marksch/psyc56/c5 6-index.htm

2. PSYC56 Music Cognition Course Description: This course studies the perceptual and cognitive processing involved in the psychology of music. The general idea is to acquaint students with the basic concepts and issues involved in the understanding of musical passages. The focus of this course is on the perception and cognition of musical materials, taking as its starting point the music listener as a gatherer and interpreter of information from the environment. Topics will include aspects such as the basic physical and psychological properties of sound, pitch perception and melodic organization, the perception of rhythm and time, musical correlates of psychological structure, musical performance, emotion and meaning in music, musical development, and so on. Course Readings: Thompson, W. F. (2009). Music, Thought, and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music. Oxford, UK: Oxford University press Additional readings as needed, available as PDFs on the course website Course Requirements and Grading: Midterm (35%) and Final (35%) Four take-home assignments (7.5% each)

3. Introduction to Music Cognition A topical outline of music psychology (Butler, 1992) Psychoacoustics and Musical Sound Stimulus properties: frequency, duration, intensity, tone partials, envelope characteristics Sensory attributes: pitch, time loudness, volume, timbre Physics and physiology: acoustics: sources of sound, propogation of sound; Physiology/capacity of the auditory system: functions within the auditory system, thresholds, central processes Musical Ability “The musical mind” performance, creativity, memory, listening Relations between musical ability and other psychological characteristics intelligence, artistic abilities, abnormalities, prodigies, savants Heredity vs. environment genealogical studies, genius, cross- racial, cross-cultural, development Musical Systems and Cognition Structural components: pitch systems: tuning, intonation, consonance, non-Western systems timbral attributes relations of components to extra- musical structure Musical constructs: melody, chords, keys, tonality, rhythm and meter, formal parameters, musical universals Applications Clinical music therapy, music and drugs Industrial Educational Teaching-learning process, formal training, informal acquisition, development Social socio-economic environment on: development, preference Influences of music on society, mass culture Affective Responses to Music Mood and emotional responses Extramusial associations Imagery, synaesthetic responses Experimental aesthetics Testing, Experimental Methodology Reliability and validity Standardization of measures Procedural and theoretical issues experimental control, ecological validity

4. What is studied in music cognition? Topic domains for empirical articles in the journal Music Perception, between 1984 - 2010 Tirovolas & Levitin (2011) Pitch Perception Temporal Perception Melodic Perception Timbre Perception Musical Memory Consonance / Dissonance Performance Emotion Development Measurement Music & Language Cross-Cultural Neural/Brain Transfer Studies designed to examine perception of individual sounds or pitches, isolated intervals and/or chords, absolute pitch, pitch encoding, pitch intensity Studies designed to examine the perception of musical time, including rhythm, meter, tempo Studies designed to examine the perception of melody, cadence, tonal patterns, melodic expectancy/contour/mode/key Studies designed to examine the perception and identification of different musical instruments, salience of instrumentation Studies designed to examine memory for isolated musical pitches or pitch sequences, the effect of music a memory aid, music training, and memory ability Studies designed to examine the perception of music as pleasant or unpleasant, including preference judgments, music appreciation, aesthetic judgment, judgment of congruence Studies designed to examine some aspect of musical performance, including rating musical performances, movement, musical sight- reading, musical style, performance ability, music education Studies designed to examine perception of emotion and meaning in music, the effect of music on mood/arousal Studies designed to examine the development of music perception through infancy, childhood, adolescence Studies designed to examine the utility of a particular instrument in measuring music perception (e.g., re-sponse time, EEG, ERP), development of empirical methodologies, measurements of musical experience Studies designed to examine some aspect of the relationship between music and speech/language, including verbal ability Studies designed to examine music perception from a cross-cultural perspective, including studies that use “non-native” music Studies designed to examine music perception from a neurological standpoint (e.g., fMRI, ERP) Studies designed to examine the effects of music training on cognitive function

5. Percentage of articles published on various music psychology topics in the journal Music Perception, between 1984 – 2010 Tirovolas & Levitin (2011) What is studied in music cognition?

6. Change over time of the percentage of articles on the top five topics in the journal Music Perception, between 1984 – 2010 Tirovolas & Levitin (2011) What is studied in music cognition?

7. Departmental affiliations of authors Tirovolas & Levitin (2011) Empirical Articles (424 total): Psychology Departments:217 Music Departments:108 Neurosciences:33 Haskins Laboratories:19 Technology/Computer Science:17 TheoreticalArticles (154 total): Psychology Departments:30 Music Departments:71 Neurosciences:10 Technology/Computer Science:8 Cognitive Science:5 Who studies music cognition?

8. External musical Internal experience stimulusof the listener Different forms of musical structure ObjectiveSubjective

9. Musical attributesPsychological that are perceivedexperiences corresponding to attributes Musical attributes Psychological that are not perceivedexperiences not corresponding to attributes Experience of the listener Not Perceived Perceived Different forms of musical structure ObjectiveSubjective Who studies music cognition?

10. How is it best to study music cognition? Inherent problems with integrating two different fields Problems with borrowing of ideas Making naive assumptions or mistakes Potential antipathy to study of field by other discipline Drawbacks of the interdisciplinary nature of music cognition Who studies music cognition?

11. Empirical approach Based on methods of cognitive psychology Diverse collection of activities Encoding and interpreting perceptual information Organizing motor responses Limitations and dangers to approach How to formulate questions, compile observations, systems to explain results Choice of stimulus material Problems with use of impoverished materials Problems with use of complex musical materials Types of behaviors of responses to measure Description of internal psychological system; need to employ responses that do not require training Observations need to be musically relevant, though Choice of listeners in study Use of participants with or without musical training How do you do this type of work?

12. History of field Roots in 1950s, cognitive revolution and information processing Began to see studies of music-related topics Work still kept under cover, though 1970 – 1980s field began to acquire real legitimacy See edited books, 1 st specialized journals appear Psychomusicology in 1981, Music Perception in 1986 More frequent music-related articles in general psychology journals Advent of specialized conferences, graduate programs Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC) International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC) The field of music cognition