Expressive Timing, Musical Tension, and Listener-Performer Synchronicity: Commentary on Ohriner

Ohriner (this volume) empirically investigated the ability of listeners to rhythmically entrain to performances of Chopin’s mazurkas and suggested that performers can manipulate listeners’ expectations and influence their perceived musical tension by using eccentric or unpredictable patterns of tempo variation. In this commentary, I attempt to situate Ohriner’s research in a broader context, while elaborating on his findings and proposing alternative interpretations in some cases. I suggest that, although mazurkas are particularly suitable for a study of entrainment due to their clear metrical structure, it would be appropriate to study musical genres in which the metrical structure is obscure or even absent. I also question Ohriner’s interpretation of a lack of synchronicity as being predominantly associated with negative emotions. Furthermore, in order to examine more rigorously the influence of synchronicity on perceived musical tension, I present a controlled experimental design to disentangle the effects of tempo and rubato, which would involve measuring both entrainment and musical tension while asking participants to rate the perceived eccentricity of the performances

Pitch enhancement facilitates word learning across visual contexts

This study investigates word-learning using a new model that integrates three processes: a) extracting a word out of a continuous sound sequence, b) inferring its referential meanings in context, c) mapping the segmented word onto its broader intended referent, such as other objects of the same semantic category, and to novel utterances. Previous work has examined the role of statistical learning and/or of prosody in each of these processes separately. Here, we combine these strands of investigation into a single experimental approach, in which participants viewed a photograph belonging to one of three semantic categories while hearing a complex, five-syllable utterance containing a one-syllable target word. Six between-subjects conditions were tested with 20 adult participants each. In condition 1, the only cue to word-meaning mapping was the co-occurrence of word and referents. This statistical cue was present in all conditions. In condition 2, the target word was sounded at a higher pitch. In condition 3, random one-syllable words were sounded at a higher pitch, creating an inconsistent cue. In condition 4, the duration of the target word was lengthened. In conditions 5 and 6, an extraneous acoustic cue and a visual cue were associated with the target word, respectively. Performance in this word-learning task was significantly higher than that observed with simple co-occurrence only when pitch prominence consistently marked the target word. We discuss implications for the intentional value of pitch marking as well as the relevance of our findings to language acquisition and language evolution

Musical complexity and ‘Embodied notation’ : a study of the opus Clavicembalisticum (K. S. Sorabji)

Scores of complex, 20th century, solo piano pieces can be difficult to perform and may even include elements that are physically impossible to play. This article investigates the role of music notation in the Opus Clavicembalisticum of Sorabji, which is a rather extreme case in terms of virtuosity and length. To analyze the effect of score notation on learning and performing, 9 pianists were asked to practice music fragments in 3 different score editions, being the original Urtext edition (a 4-staff score), Performance edition (same notes but organized according to an “embodied” performance viewpoint), and Study edition (further simplified and with added analytical reading aids). The hypothesis was that the “embodied notation”, would have an effect on study time (shorter study time) and errors (less errors). Objective features of the study process and performance, such as study time, error ratio, markings on the score (fingerings, hand distribution, synchronization) were compared. Subjective remarks the performers made about the scores were also analyzed. Findings indicate a significant positive influence of the score type on the study time. These results suggest that players draw on ideomotor principles, which include processes based on learned and “embodied” associations between perceived images of the scores and the motor activity that is directly associated with it

Perceiving individuality in harpsichord performance

Can listeners recognize the individual characteristics of unfamiliar performers playing two different musical pieces on the harpsichord? Six professional harpsichordists, three prize-winners and three non prize-winners, made two recordings of two pieces from the Baroque period (a variation on a Partita by Frescobaldi and a rondo by François Couperin) on an instrument equipped with a MIDI console. Short (8 to 15 s) excerpts from these 24 recordings were subsequently used in a sorting task in which 20 musicians and 20 non-musicians, balanced for gender, listened to these excerpts and grouped together those that they thought had been played by the same performer. Twenty-six participants, including 17 musicians and nine non-musicians, performed significantly better than chance, demonstrating that the excerpts contained sufficient information to enable listeners to recognize the individual characteristics of the performers. The grouping accuracy of musicians was significantly higher than that observed for non-musicians. No significant difference in grouping accuracy was found between prize-winning performers and non-winners or between genders. However, the grouping accuracy was significantly higher for the rondo than for the variation, suggesting that the features of the two pieces differed in a way that affected the listeners' ability to sort them accurately. Furthermore, only musicians performed above chance level when matching variation excerpts with rondo excerpts, suggesting that accurately assigning recordings of different pieces to their performer may require musical training. Comparisons between the MIDI performance data and the results of the sorting task revealed that tempo and, to a lesser extent, note onset asynchrony were the most important predictors of the perceived distance between performers, and that listeners appeared to rely mostly on a holistic percept of the excerpts rather than on a comparison of note-by-note expressive patterns

The Tapping-PROMS: A test for the assessment of sensorimotor rhythmic abilities

Sensorimotor synchronization is a longstanding paradigm in the analysis of isochronous beat tapping. Assessing the finger tapping of complex rhythmic patterns is far less explored and considerably more complex to analyze. Hence, whereas several instruments to assess tempo or beat tapping ability exist, there is at present a shortage of paradigms and tools for the assessment of the ability to tap to complex rhythmic patterns. To redress this limitation, we developed a standardized rhythm tapping test comprising test items of different complexity. The items were taken from the rhythm and tempo subtests of the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS), and administered as tapping items to 40 participants (20 women). Overall, results showed satisfactory psychometric properties for internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity correlations fell in line with expectations. Specifically, performance in rhythm tapping was correlated more strongly with performance in rhythm perception than in tempo perception, whereas performance in tempo tapping was more strongly correlated with performance in tempo than rhythm perception. Both tapping tasks were only marginally correlated with non-temporal perception tasks. In combination, the tapping tasks explained variance in external indicators of musical proficiency above and beyond the perceptual PROMS tasks. This tool allows for the assessment of complex rhythmic tapping skills in about 15 min, thus providing a useful addition to existing music aptitude batteries

Structural Classification of Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Vocalizations.

Determining whether a species' vocal communication system is graded or discrete requires definition of its vocal repertoire. In this context, research on domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) vocalizations, for example, has led to significant advances in our understanding of communicative functions. Despite their close relation to domestic pigs, little is known about wild boar (Sus scrofa) vocalizations. The few existing studies, conducted in the 1970s, relied on visual inspections of spectrograms to quantify acoustic parameters and lacked statistical analysis. Here, we use objective signal processing techniques and advanced statistical approaches to classify 616 calls recorded from semi-free ranging animals. Based on four spectral and temporal acoustic parameters-quartile Q25, duration, spectral flux, and spectral flatness-extracted from a multivariate analysis, we refine and extend the conclusions drawn from previous work and present a statistically validated classification of the wild boar vocal repertoire into four call types: grunts, grunt-squeals, squeals, and trumpets. While the majority of calls could be sorted into these categories using objective criteria, we also found evidence supporting a graded interpretation of some wild boar vocalizations as acoustically continuous, with the extremes representing discrete call types. The use of objective criteria based on modern techniques and statistics in respect to acoustic continuity advances our understanding of vocal variation. Integrating our findings with recent studies on domestic pig vocal behavior and emotions, we emphasize the importance of grunt-squeals for acoustic approaches to animal welfare and underline the need of further research investigating the role of domestication on animal vocal communication

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

The Musicality of Non-Musicians: An Index for Assessing Musical Sophistication in the General Population

Musical skills and expertise vary greatly in Western societies. Individuals can differ in their repertoire of musical behaviours as well as in the level of skill they display for any single musical behaviour. The types of musical behaviours we refer to here are broad, ranging from performance on an instrument and listening expertise, to the ability to employ music in functional settings or to communicate about music. In this paper, we first describe the concept of ‘musical sophistication’ which can be used to describe the multi-faceted nature of musical expertise. Next, we develop a novel measurement instrument, the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) to assess self-reported musical skills and behaviours on multiple dimensions in the general population using a large Internet sample (n = 147,636). Thirdly, we report results from several lab studies, demonstrating that the Gold-MSI possesses good psychometric properties, and that self-reported musical sophistication is associated with performance on two listening tasks. Finally, we identify occupation, occupational status, age, gender, and wealth as the main socio-demographic factors associated with musical sophistication. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical accounts of implicit and statistical music learning and with regard to social conditions of sophisticated musical engagement