Cognitive Psychology and Music

1. Cognitive Psychology

Figure 1. Internal representation by the brain can be quite different from the physical stimulus on the sensory modules (e.g. the retinal in the eye or the basilar membrane in the ear).

2. Unconscious Inference

Figure 2. Our perceptual machinery automatically makes the inference to three-dimensional objects on the basis of perceptual cues that are present in the two-dimensional pattern on the retinal.

3. Size and Loudness Constancy

Figure 3. The head closest to the perceiver is the same physical size as the too big head farthest away.

4. Spatial and Temporal Inversion

                                                                                    (a)

                                                                                    (b)

            Figure 4. After infancy, we become more tuned to seeing faces right-side up as in (a), and thus it is hard to see the "frowning" faces as being upside down in (b).

            Sound Examples: sound1    sound2    sound3    sound4    sound5    sound6

4. Perceptual Completion

(a)

                                                                                      (c)

            Figure 5 (a) Continuation. We would normally assume one continuous bar beneath the disk. (b) Another possible explanation of (a). (c) Continuation with some symmetry.

            Sound Examples: sound1    sound2    sound3    sound4

Reference

Shepard, Roger, "Cognitive Psychology and Music" in "Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound", edited by Perry R. Cook, The MIT Press, 2001

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Kyogu Lee
Graduate Student
Center for Computer Music and Acoustics
Department of Music
Stanford University
kglee@ccrma.stanford.edu