Galileo's conceptualization of the world consisted of:

• 'res cogitans' (thinking things), whose study deals with issues of perception, thinking, understanding, learning, etc.
• 'res extensu' (external things), whose study deals with the material world 'outside' ourselves.

Our class will be concentrating on 'res cogitans', acknowledging their interdependence with 'res extensu'.

Guiding Questions

• What defines science as a mode of knowing? What is the study scope of a cognitive neuroscience of music?
   
• What defines the scientific method and what are the current research methods in cognitive neuroscience of music?
   
• Which auditory and cognitive processes are involved in music listening?
   
• How does music listening, creation, and production relate to cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and learning?
   
• How does musical activities influence brain structure and function?
   
• How do musical elements --such as rhythm, melody, harmony, and timbre-- relate to thoughts, emotions, preferences, and behavior?
   
• How does music elicit emotions and communicate meaning?
   
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• What are the basic principles that underpin AI-supported music creation and analysis?
   
• How do cognitive processes that are related to music perception inform the development of music AI systems?
   
• What are the implications of AI-generated music for copyright, authorship, and the evolving role of human musicians?

 

Guiding Assumptions

• Musical activity grows out of fundamental cognitive processes and largely defines human experience, as does language.
   
• There are aspects of human experience and understanding that are best articulated through music.
   

Peretz, I. and Zatorre, R.J. eds. (2003).
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music.
One of the key reference resources.

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF MUSIC

Cognitive (from "cogitans") neuroscience of music
_ explores how music is processed in the brain and how it impacts cognition, emotion, and behavior;
_ informs music performance, recording, processing, and presentation;
_ informs therapeutic practices and educational strategies.

The cognitive neuroscience of music is a highly intricate, multidisciplinary field, complicated by the diversity of constructs, terminologies, and biases involved in the natural, social, and behavioral sciences. As a behavioral epistemology (i.e. a science based on observations of behavioral change during, following, and/or anticipating a musical experience), it utilizes the approaches of empirical science. It originates in psychophysics and blends knowledge, processes, and methods of auditory neuroscience and cognitive psychology of music.

Psychophysics [psycho-: internal world (from the Greek psyhi: mind/soul)  & physics: external world (from the Greek physis: nature)]
A multidisciplinary science that represents a systematic attempt to link the physical world with sensation, whether tactile, visual, aural, gustational (taste), olfactional (smell), or kinesthetic. 

19th century German physician, E.H. Weber, was the first to map physical magnitudes to perceptual (sensory/psychic) magnitudes, in his work on the sense of touch (1834). He showed that the physical and perceptual worlds are non-isomorphic*; they are measurable with different degrees of accuracy and at different levels of nonlinearity. In general, sense perception connects to the 'external world' with considerably less precision than physics. [*Isomorphism: A one-to-one correspondence between variables in different sets.]
Cognitive abilities developed through experience may help us surpass the limits of perceptual and even physical precision, or may lead to misperceptions / perceptual illusions, depending on context (see the opening video).

Psychoacoustics is a branch of psychophysics that deals with the physical (e.g. vibrations, wave theory), physiological (e.g. construction of the ear), and perceptual (e.g. auditory sensations) correlates of sound production, transmission, and reception.
More specifically, it forges a link among the physical, physiological, and perceptual frames of reference*, examining ways in which physics and physiology interact to give rise to auditory sensations/perceptions.
[*Frame of reference: A collection of concepts and definitions accepted by a particular field or bounded area of discourse.]

Auditory neuroscience focuses on how the brain and nervous system interpret and process auditory information, from the detection of sound waves by the ear to the complex interpretation of these signals as meaningful sounds, such as speech, music, or environmental noises.
      Neuroscience of music is a branch of auditory neuroscience that explores the neural mechanisms underlying music perception, cognition, emotion
      and performance, and the ways in which, engaging with music can influence brain structure and function.

Cognitive psychology of music addresses implicit and explicit processes involved in the organization of sonic perceptions into meaningful wholes and provides empirical support to the understanding of how we interpret and evaluate sound and sound structures. It explores how we experience emotions through music and how cognitive processes like attention, learning, and memory influence and are influenced by musical activities.

Areas of Research

• Music Perception: Investigates how we perceive, encode in the brain, and process different elements of music (e.g. pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre), and how we recognize and distinguish among different musical patterns.
   
• Music and Memory: Explores how we encode, store, and retrieve music from memory. Examples include studies on how melodies and lyrics are remembered, the impact of music on episodic, autobiographical, and historical memory, and the use of music as a mnemonic device.
   
• Music Cognition and Emotion: Examines the neurophysiologic and cognitive mechanisms underlying music's contribution to emotional experiences. It looks into how different musical elements are linked to emotional states and how these states are processed cognitively.
   
• Musical Skills and Cognitive Development & Function: Studies how individuals develop musical listening and performance skills and how musical practice and training affect the development of cognitive processes like auditory discrimination, motor coordination, attention, language acquisition, problem-solving, spatial-temporal reasoning, cognitive flexibility, emotional development, creativity, and social skills.
   
• Cross-Modal Perception: Investigates how music perception interacts with other sensory modalities, such as the visual system. For example, audio-visual research explores how visual stimulation influences our interpretation of what we hear and the other way around.
   
• Music Therapy: Studies the use of music-based interventions for the improvement of patients' psychological and physical outcomes.

 
The field was delimited in the second half of the 19th century mainly through the works of three natural philosophers (term commonly used at the time to refer to individuals who we would now refer to as scientists):

G.T. Fechner (German physicist and philosopher) codified Weber's idea of mapping physical and perceptual variables (Elements of Psychophysics, 1860). Fechner's "Psychophysical Law" states that perception relates logarithmically to the physical world: multiplication in physical variables corresponds to addition in the relevant perceptual variables. Fechner's "law" applies to both, pitch and loudness. 
 
H. Helmholtz (German physicist and physician) produced seminal works in diverse areas spanning a large portion of what we call science (e.g. On the Sensation of Tone, as a Physiological basis for a Theory of Music, 1862). His works influenced Carl Seashore, who wrote the first "Psychology of Music" in 1938, and many others. Helmholtz's understanding of the concepts of musical consonance and dissonance continues to be influential.
 
J.W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh - British physicist) was the first to address acoustical concepts that still fuel cutting edge research in musical-instrument, physiological, psychological, underwater, environmental, and nonlinear acoustics (The Theory of Sound, 1896). 

Science Versus Common Sense

Common sense is " ...a series of concepts and conceptual schemes satisfactory for the practical uses of humanity" based on previous experience [ Conant, J.B., 1951. "Science and Common Sense"; in Woodcock, 2014: 2087 ]. As such, it does not support creative thought. Rather, " ...in creative thought, common sense is a bad master. Its sole criterion for judgment is that the new ideas shall look like the old ones. In other words it can only work by suppressing originality. " [ Whitehead, A.N., 1911. "An Introduction to Mathematics": 157 ].

Science is a systematic and controlled extension of common sense. It focuses on discovery and involves the self-correcting and open-ended process of empirical investigation (discussed in Module 02). Scientists:

• systematically build theoretical models*;
• subject such models and constructs** to the process of empirical investigation;
• systematically control factors involved, to ensure that empirical tests actually address the question(s) of interest;
• systematically pursue hypotheses (i.e. relationships among observations and constructs);
• rule out explanations that cannot be tested and actively pursue avenues that may disconfirm a hypothesis;
• adjust beliefs based on evidence rather than the other way around.

[ *Scientific theoretical model: A simplified representation of a phenomenon or system, based on a scientific theory, that aims to explain and predict how key variables interact. **Scientific construct: an abstract concept representing phenomena that can't be directly observed or measured. ]
 

Methods of Knowing

American physicist, mathematician, logician, and founder of pragmatism and semiotics, C.S. Peirce, postulated four pathways to belief
[ Pierce, C.S., 1877. "The Fixation of Belief." - summary & analysis]

• tenacity (holding on to what we already know)
• authority (following those with power and/or who we respect)
• intuition (following personal insight and relying on a-priori claims of self-evidence)
• science (systematically constructing theories and testing them empirically, objectively, and critically)

Although not acknowledged by Peirce, the method of science does to some degree involve all other methods. It is considered superior to them because of its systematic, controlled, self-correcting, and 'objective' nature.
Objectivity is a controversial concept, best understood as relying on commonly agreed-upon methodologies, expertly tested. Rigorous peer review processes associated with scientific research contribute to the quality of the knowledge advanced.
[ For more on science as a mode of knowing, see Kerlinger & Lee (2000) ]

Cartesian thought / Cartesianism

_ Named after René Descartes, 17th century French philosopher, scientist, & mathematician. His idea that observations/reality can be replaced by symbols and examined through symbol manipulation represents an important intellectual leap.

_ Reality is one, fixed, and knowable, independent from our understanding of it.
     
_ The world is objective and our perception subjective.
 
 
_ Science provides a topological map of reality and the process of empirical investigation (see Module 02) reflects the world as it really is. Reality can be re-constructed through observation and can be expressed by symbol sets.
Symbols are defining aspects of objectivity and frames of reference expressed by symbol sets (e.g. mathematics, signal processing, music theory) are privileged. There is an isomorphic relationship between truth and fact. The world is a machine (i.e. system of relationships governed by laws), obeying physical laws that are external to the observer. As part of the world machine, we, too, obey such laws.
  
_ Scientists discover the laws of nature and of behavior.

 

Humean thought

_ Named after David Hume, 18th century Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, & essayist. His ideas represent a radical paradigm shift, often referred to as 'Hume's wrecking ball.'

_ Reality and our understanding of it are the products of the observer.
 
_ There can be no dichotomy between objective and subjective; the observer is always part of the system being observed.
 
_ Science is not a topological map of reality; it "invents" it. Science "laws" are constructs that model reality. They constitute rules that describe predictable relations among variables, in a non-contradictory way. Consequently, there can be more than one possible realities.
Our sole access to "truth" is via models of reality, which are not fixed but constitute sets of reliable facts/events. Science, therefore, deals not with fixed truths but with facts, understood probabilistically.
 
     
_ Scientists outline sets of rules that offer reliable models of reality, which must content with issues of reliability and validity (see Module 02). 

Does a musical score on a bookshelf  constitute music?