1,784 research outputs found

    Evaluation of product sound design within the context of emotion design and emotional branding

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    Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Industrial Design, Izmir, 2005Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 111-122)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxi, 127 leavesThe main purpose of this thesis is to set out the relationships between the work of product designers and the perceptions of costumers regarding the acceptability of product sounds. Product design that provides aesthetic appeal, pleasure and satisfaction can greatly influence success of a product. Sound as a cognitive artifact, plays a significant role in the cognition of product interaction and in shaping its identity. This thesis will review emotion theories end their application to sound design and sound quality modeling, the measurement of emotional responses to sound, and the relationship between psycho-acoustical sound descriptions and emotions. In addition to that, affects of sounds to emotionally significant brands will be evaluated so as to examine marketing values. One of the main purposes of chapter 2 is to prove knowledge about psychoacoustics; as product sound quality is a basic understanding of the underlying psychoacoustics phenomena. Perception; particularly sound perception and its elements are described during chapter 2. Starting with the description of sound wave and how our hear works, sound perception and auditory sensation is reviewed in continuation. In chapter 3, product sound quality concept and its evaluation principles are reviewed. Thus, in order to understand the coupling between the acoustic perception and the product design; knowledge of general principles for product sound quality are required. Chapter 4 can be considered as two main sections. .How does emotion act as a delighter in product design?. is examined to better understand customer and user experiences impacting pleasure-ability in first section. In the second section, emotion is evaluated through sound design. A qualitative evaluation is done so as to examine cognition and emotion in sound perception. Chapter 5 leads subject through emotional branding. Sounds that carry the brand.s identity are evaluated within. Sound design is re-evaluated as marketing strategy and examined with several instances. Keywords: Product sound design, psychoacoustics, product sound quality, emotion design, emotional branding

    Perception of emotion in music in adults with cochlear implants

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    Music is an integral aspect of culture that is uniquely tied to our emotions. Previous studies have shown that hearing loss and cochlear implantation have deleterious effects on music and emotion perception, particularly cues related to pitch, melody, and mode. The purpose of this study is to examine acoustic cues that adults with cochlear implants and adults with normal hearing might use to perceive emotion in music (e.g., tempo and pitch range). One adult (ages 18-50 years) with a cochlear implant and 15 adults who have normal hearing were tested. The participants listened to a series of 40 melodies which varied along tempo and pitch range. Ten melodies conveyed sadness (small pitch range; slow tempo) and 10 conveyed happiness (large pitch range; fast tempo). The remaining 20 presented conflicting cues (small pitch range + fast tempo or large pitch range + slow tempo). We asked participants to rate the emotion of the musical excerpt on a 7-point Likert scale along three dimensions: happy-sad, pleasant-unpleasant, and engaged-unengaged. Results showed that adults with NH and CIs relied on tempo more than pitch range when perceiving emotion in music, but in two instances adults with NH took pitch range into account when rating. The results from this study will help shed light on how effectively cochlear implants convey musical emotions, and could eventually lead to improvements in music perception in listeners with hearing loss

    Decoding expectation and surprise in dementia: the paradigm of music

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    Making predictions about the world and responding appropriately to unexpected events are essential functions of the healthy brain. In neurodegenerative disorders, such as frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease, impaired processing of 'surprise' may underpin a diverse array of symptoms, particularly abnormalities of social and emotional behaviour, but is challenging to characterize. Here, we addressed this issue using a novel paradigm: music. We studied 62 patients (24 female; aged 53-88) representing major syndromes of frontotemporal dementia (behavioural variant, semantic variant primary progressive aphasia, non-fluent-agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia) and typical amnestic Alzheimer's disease, in relation to 33 healthy controls (18 female; aged 54-78). Participants heard famous melodies containing no deviants or one of three types of deviant note-acoustic (white-noise burst), syntactic (key-violating pitch change) or semantic (key-preserving pitch change). Using a regression model that took elementary perceptual, executive and musical competence into account, we assessed accuracy detecting melodic deviants and simultaneously recorded pupillary responses and related these to deviant surprise value (information-content) and carrier melody predictability (entropy), calculated using an unsupervised machine learning model of music. Neuroanatomical associations of deviant detection accuracy and coupling of detection to deviant surprise value were assessed using voxel-based morphometry of patients' brain MRI. Whereas Alzheimer's disease was associated with normal deviant detection accuracy, behavioural and semantic variant frontotemporal dementia syndromes were associated with strikingly similar profiles of impaired syntactic and semantic deviant detection accuracy and impaired behavioural and autonomic sensitivity to deviant information-content (all P < 0.05). On the other hand, non-fluent-agrammatic primary progressive aphasia was associated with generalized impairment of deviant discriminability (P < 0.05) due to excessive false-alarms, despite retained behavioural and autonomic sensitivity to deviant information-content and melody predictability. Across the patient cohort, grey matter correlates of acoustic deviant detection accuracy were identified in precuneus, mid and mesial temporal regions; correlates of syntactic deviant detection accuracy and information-content processing, in inferior frontal and anterior temporal cortices, putamen and nucleus accumbens; and a common correlate of musical salience coding in supplementary motor area (all P < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons in pre-specified regions of interest). Our findings suggest that major dementias have distinct profiles of sensory 'surprise' processing, as instantiated in music. Music may be a useful and informative paradigm for probing the predictive decoding of complex sensory environments in neurodegenerative proteinopathies, with implications for understanding and measuring the core pathophysiology of these diseases

    Hearing and dementia

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    Hearing deficits associated with cognitive impairment have attracted much recent interest, motivated by emerging evidence that impaired hearing is a risk factor for cognitive decline. However, dementia and hearing impairment present immense challenges in their own right, and their intersection in the auditory brain remains poorly understood and difficult to assess. Here, we outline a clinically oriented, symptom-based approach to the assessment of hearing in dementias, informed by recent progress in the clinical auditory neuroscience of these diseases. We consider the significance and interpretation of hearing loss and symptoms that point to a disorder of auditory cognition in patients with dementia. We identify key auditory characteristics of some important dementias and conclude with a bedside approach to assessing and managing auditory dysfunction in dementia

    Music and the brain: disorders of musical listening

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    The study of the brain bases for normal musical listening has advanced greatly in the last 30 years. The evidence from basic and clinical neuroscience suggests that listening to music involves many cognitive components with distinct brain substrates. Using patient cases reported in the literature, we develop an approach for understanding disordered musical listening that is based on the systematic assessment of the perceptual and cognitive analysis of music and its emotional effect. This approach can be applied both to acquired and congenital deficits of musical listening, and to aberrant listening in patients with musical hallucinations. Both the bases for normal musical listening and the clinical assessment of disorders now have a solid grounding in systems neuroscience

    Cognitive and neural determinants of music appreciation and aesthetics

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    Music appreciation and aesthetics have been subject to philosophical considerations and empirical investigations for decades. These scientific endeavours have been complicated by the fact that multifarious biological and cultural factors interact in all musical actions. The present thesis made use of behavioural methods and the event-related-potential technique (ERP) to investigate cognitive and neural determinants of music appreciation and aesthetics. At first, the structure and content of the knowledge-based concept of music aesthetics was examined on the basis of hundreds of verbal descriptions. In a second step, the developmental stage of school-aged children was investigated with regard to their recognition of music emotions, personal music preferences, and their concept of beauty. The event-related potential (ERP) method served to study whether long-term music preferences affect evaluative and cognitive judgments of music and whether expressive timing facilitates the neural processing of musical phrases. The results suggest that one s experience of beauty is at the core of aesthetic responses to music among both music experts and laymen. In line, by the age of six years, children have already developed a mental concept of beauty that resembles that of adults. They are able to recognise music emotions and to express their own music preferences. These early music preferences may become stable over a lifetime and later seem to modulate neural correlates of judgment processes during active music listening. Expressive timing, in turn, determines the neural processing of musical phrases even when these are unattended. In addition, expressive timing seems to facilitate the sequential organisation of melodies by directing listeners attention towards key musical events. The concept of beauty, music preference, music emotions, and the action of successfully structuring musical information constitute major elements of music appreciation. Thus, this thesis deepens our understanding of the conceptual and neural underpinnings of pleasurable musical experiences and allows extending and transferring current general models of aesthetic processing to music-specific demands.Musiikkimieltymyksiä ja estetiikkaa on lähestytty tieteessä sekä filosofian että kokeellisen tutkimuksen avulla. Koska nykykäsityksen mukaan kaikki musiikkiin liittyvä toiminta perustuu sekä biologisiin että opittuihin tekijöihin, on alan tutkimus suurten haasteiden edessä. Tässä väitöskirjassa musiikkimieltymyksiä ja esteettisiä arvioita tutkittiin hyödyntämällä useita lähestymistapoja. Ensimmäiseksi selvitettiin musiikin esteettisten arvioiden käsitehierarkiaa vapaan assosiaation menetelmällä, jossa aikuiset koehenkilöt listasivat musiikkiin liittyviä adjektiiveja. Seuraavaksi kouluikäisten lasten musiikkiemootioita, mieltymyksiä ja kauneuskäsitteitä tutkittiin innovatiivisella pelinomaisella tutkimusalustalla. Lisäksi kahdessa tutkimuksessa aivojen tapahtumasidonnaisia jännitevasteita käytettiin osoittamaan, kuinka eri musiikkityyleihin kohdistuvat musiikkimieltymykset ( fanittaminen ) sekä musiikissa käytetyt tunneilmaisun keinot vaikuttavat musiikin hermostolliseen käsittelyyn. Tulosten mukaan kauneuden kokemus on olennaista musiikin kuulijoiden esteettisissä arvioissa riippumatta heidän musiikillisen harjaantuneisuutensa määrästä. Vastaavasti jo 6-vuotiailla on hallussaan samankaltainen kauneuden käsite kuin aikuisilla. Vakiinnuttuaan musiikkimieltymykset ilmenevät musiikin hermostollisessa käsittelyssä eriytyen hienovaraisesti kuuntelutehtävän ohjeistuksen/tavoitteiden? suhteen. Musiikilliseen ilmaisuun liittyvien musiikin ajallisten muutosten hermostollinen käsittely on automatisoitunutta, joskin musiikkiin kohdistettu tietoinen tarkkaavaisuus voi musiikin käsittelyä vielä tehostaa. Väitöskirjan tulosten mukaan kauneuden käsite, musiikkimieltymykset sekä emootiot sekä musiikin ajallisen ja ilmaisullisen rakenteen hahmottaminen ovat keskeisiä musiikillisen toiminnan elementtejä, joiden käsitteellistä ja hermostollista prosessointia voidaan monimetodisella tutkimusotteella luotettavasti selvittää

    Understanding sorting algorithms using music and spatial distribution

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    This thesis is concerned with the communication of information using auditory techniques. In particular, a music-based interface has been used to communicate the operation of a number of sorting algorithms to users. This auditory interface has been further enhanced by the creation of an auditory scene including a sound wall, which enables the auditory interface to utilise music parameters in conjunction with 2D/3D spatial distribution to communicate the essential processes in the algorithms. The sound wall has been constructed from a grid of measurements using a human head to create a spatial distribution. The algorithm designer can therefore communicate events using pitch, rhythm and timbre and associate these with particular positions in space. A number of experiments have been carried out to investigate the usefulness of music and the sound wall in communicating information relevant to the algorithms. Further, user understanding of the six algorithms has been tested. In all experiments the effects of previous musical experience has been allowed for. The results show that users can utilise musical parameters in understanding algorithms and that in all cases improvements have been observed using the sound wall. Different user performance was observed with different algorithms and it is concluded that certain types of information lend themselves more readily to communication through auditory interfaces than others. As a result of the experimental analysis, recommendations are given on how to improve the sound wall and user understanding by improved choice of the musical mappings

    The Perception of Prosody in English-Speaking Children with Cochlear Implants: A Systematic Review

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    Objective: The goal of this paper was to systematically review literature in order to investigate the perception of prosody in English-speaking children with cochlear implants. Methods: A comprehensive search utilizing various peer-reviewed databases accessible through the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center Library was conducted to identify relevant studies. Inclusion criteria included studies that examined prosody perception in pre-and post-lingually deafened children with cochlear implants. Children who utilized unilateral, bilateral, and bimodal configurations of cochlear implants were therefore included in this search. Results: 9 studies met the inclusion criteria for this systematic review. The findings demonstrated both negative and positive outcomes for pediatric users of cochlear implants. Of the 9 studies included in this systematic review, 6 (66%) included an outcome measure that assessed emotion perception, and 3 (33%) included an outcome measure that examined specific domains of speech prosody perception. Additionally, 2 of the 9 (22%) included studies specifically investigated the connection between music and the perception of emotional speech prosody. Discussion: Results support the use and continued development of intensive (re)habilitation emphasizing suprasegmental and paralinguistic aspects of speech through prosody perception measures sensitive to both emotional and linguistic components. Positive effects of music training were also found in audio-only conditions for the perception of emotional prosody. Future research needs to be based on larger sample sizes, and should offer more alternative choices in the identification of emotional or prosodic cues, heightening prosody classification difficulty for prosody perception tasks. Incorporating differing levels of background noise and reverberation during prosody perception tasks is also recommended to simulate situations which are more representative of complex listening situations encountered by pediatric cochlear implant users. Conclusions: Performance on emotion recognition and other aspects of prosody perception including music perception is generally poorer in children with cochlear implants than in participants in comparison groups, such as normal-hearing children. Specifically, the findings of this systematic review support the use and validation of intensive (re)habilitation measures emphasizing suprasegmental and paralinguistic aspects of speech, as well as emotion and music prosody perception

    ESCOM 2017 Book of Abstracts

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