Cognitive Information Processing

Contains reports on six research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM14940-03)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM15006-03)Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 TO1 GM01555-03

Sound archaeology: terminology, Palaeolithic cave art and the soundscape

This article is focused on the ways that terminology describing the study of music and sound within archaeology has changed over time, and how this reflects developing methodologies, exploring the expectations and issues raised by the use of differing kinds of language to define and describe such work. It begins with a discussion of music archaeology, addressing the problems of using the term ‘music’ in an archaeological context. It continues with an examination of archaeoacoustics and acoustics, and an emphasis on sound rather than music. This leads on to a study of sound archaeology and soundscapes, pointing out that it is important to consider the complete acoustic ecology of an archaeological site, in order to identify its affordances, those possibilities offered by invariant acoustic properties. Using a case study from northern Spain, the paper suggests that all of these methodological approaches have merit, and that a project benefits from their integration

Sound art and the making of public space

This paper draws on a collaborative sound art project that aimed to explore how sound art as a non-representational method might attract and produce new publics and re-signify iconic public spaces . We describe how the project, AGORA, proceeded and to what extent it transformed the spaces it was performed in and made new, if transient, publics in the moments of performance. This paper focuses on the British Museum and St George’s Church, Bloomsbury. In the Museum the contemplation and resignification provoked by the intervention enlivened the sacred character of the museum. We argue that this (re)sacralization can be experienced as a practice of decolonization, albeit perhaps limited to the space and time of the performance. The Church, already signified as a sacred space, provoked another kind of encounter with the sacred and the colonial. The extended period of reflection provoked by the performance made visible the etchings of colonialism in the fabric of the building. Our contribution is primarily to the geographic literature on non-representational theory in relation to sonic geographies and music geographies. This paper points to the potential of sound art to make us listen to spaces more attentively

Behavioural and neuroanatomical correlates of auditory speech analysis in primary progressive aphasias

Background Non-verbal auditory impairment is increasingly recognised in the primary progressive aphasias (PPAs) but its relationship to speech processing and brain substrates has not been defined. Here we addressed these issues in patients representing the non-fluent variant (nfvPPA) and semantic variant (svPPA) syndromes of PPA. Methods We studied 19 patients with PPA in relation to 19 healthy older individuals. We manipulated three key auditory parameters—temporal regularity, phonemic spectral structure and prosodic predictability (an index of fundamental information content, or entropy)—in sequences of spoken syllables. The ability of participants to process these parameters was assessed using two-alternative, forced-choice tasks and neuroanatomical associations of task performance were assessed using voxel-based morphometry of patients’ brain magnetic resonance images. Results Relative to healthy controls, both the nfvPPA and svPPA groups had impaired processing of phonemic spectral structure and signal predictability while the nfvPPA group additionally had impaired processing of temporal regularity in speech signals. Task performance correlated with standard disease severity and neurolinguistic measures. Across the patient cohort, performance on the temporal regularity task was associated with grey matter in the left supplementary motor area and right caudate, performance on the phoneme processing task was associated with grey matter in the left supramarginal gyrus, and performance on the prosodic predictability task was associated with grey matter in the right putamen. Conclusions Our findings suggest that PPA syndromes may be underpinned by more generic deficits of auditory signal analysis, with a distributed cortico-subcortical neuraoanatomical substrate extending beyond the canonical language network. This has implications for syndrome classification and biomarker development

Parameters in panoramic radiography for differentiation of radiolucent lesions

OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to establish parameters in panoramic radiography for interpretation of unilocular radiolucent lesions, and to compare the accuracy of diagnoses given by examiners before and after using these parameters. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In Part I, 12 specialists analyzed 24 images and the diagnostic criteria used by each examiner to make correct diagnoses were used to build a list of basic radiographic parameters for each pathology (ameloblastoma, keratocystic odontogenic tumor, dentigerous cyst, and idiopathic bone cavity). In Part II, this list was used by 6 undergraduate students (Un), 8 recently graduated dentists (D), 3 oral pathologists, 3 stomatologists, 3 oral radiologists, and 3 oral surgeons to diagnose the corresponding pathologies in the other set of 24 panoramic radiographs (T2). The same analysis occurred without using this list (T1). The method of generalized estimating equations (GEE) was used in order to estimate the probability of making a correct diagnosis depending on the specialty of the examiner, type of lesion, and moment of the evaluation, T1 or T2 (before or after they had access to the list of parameters, respectively). RESULTS: Higher values were obtained for the probability (GEE) of making a correct diagnosis on T2; the group Un presented the highest improvement (14.6 %); no differences between the probabilities were observed either between Un and D, or among the different groups of specialists. CONCLUSIONS: The use of panoramic radiographic parameters did allow improving the diagnostic accuracy for all groups of examiners

Sounds too true to be good: diegetic infidelity–the case for sound in virtual reality

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Media Practice following peer review. The version of record McArthur, A., et al. (2017). "Sounds too true to be good: diegetic infidelity – the case for sound in virtual reality." Journal of Media Practice 18(1): 26-40. is available online at:https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2017.1305840© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Cinematic virtual reality (VR) elicits new possibilities for the treatment of sound in space. Distinct from screen-based practices of filmmaking, diegetic sound–image relations in immersive environments present unique, potent affordances, in which content is at once imaginary, and real. However, a reductive modelling of environmental realism, in the name of ‘presence’ predominates. Yet cross-modal perception is a noisy, flickering representation of worlds. Treating our perceptual apparatus as stable, objective transducers, ignores the inter-subjective potential at the heart of immersive work, and situates users as passive spectators. This condescends to audiences and discounts the historic symbiosis of sound–image signification, which comes to constitute notions of verisimilitude. We understand the tropes; we willingly suspend disbelief. This article examines spatial sound rendering in virtual environments, probing at diegetic realism. It calls for an experimental, aesthetic approach, suggesting several speculative strategies, drawing from theories of embodied cognition and acousmatic practice (amongst others) which necessarily deal with space and time as contingencies of the immersive. VR affords a development of the dialectic between sound and image which distinctively involves our spatial attention. The lines between referent and signified blur; the mediation between representations invoked by practitioners, and those experienced by audiences, suggest new opportunities for co-authorship.The authors wish to acknowledge support from the EPSRC and AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology through Queen Mary University of London

Listening geographies: Landscape, affect and geotechnologies

This paper argues for expanded listening in geography. Expanded listening addresses how bodies of all kinds, human and more-than-human, respond to sound. We show how listening can contribute to research on a wide range of topics, beyond enquiry where sound itself is the primary substantive interest. This is demonstrated through close discussion of what an amplified sonic sensibility can bring to three areas of contemporary geographical interest: geographies of landscape, of affect, and of geotechnologies