Psychoacoustics for Musicians: Sensation, Perception, and Cognition of Musical Sound
Format
Oral Presentation
Faculty Mentor Name
Dr. Kumi Yueda
Faculty Mentor Department
Music
Additional Faculty Mentor Name
Dr. Sarah Waltz
Additional Faculty Mentor Department
Music
Abstract/Artist Statement
All musicians work with the medium of sound, yet most student musicians have limited discussions regarding how our minds process, understand, and respond to music. My project on psychoacoustics explains how we perceive sounds in both objective and subjective ways. The pathway from objective sound to subjective interpretation can be categorized as (a) sensation, (b) perception, and (c) cognition of sound. My research on objective sound looks at the physical components of a musical soundwave, such as its waveform, envelope, and timbre; my presentation then explains how the sound information travels from the outer ear to the cochlea, through a web of brainstem and midbrain regions, before reaching the temporal lobe of the brain. The second part of my research focuses on perception, where I examine how sound perception is dependent on how sound waves interact with the environment before reaching the ear, and how some aspects of musical perception, such as pitch, are more objective, whereas others, such as duration and loudness, are more subjective. In my third and final section, I examine music cognition, which explains how listeners make sense of these sound components, stringing them together into a musical ‘necklace.’ How a listener draws subjective meaning from the sound ‘necklace’ is influenced by qualitative variables such as a listener’s cultural background, stage of life, social standing, musical experiences, and mood.
Location
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
Start Date
29-4-2023 10:00 AM
End Date
29-4-2023 1:00 PM
Psychoacoustics for Musicians: Sensation, Perception, and Cognition of Musical Sound
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
All musicians work with the medium of sound, yet most student musicians have limited discussions regarding how our minds process, understand, and respond to music. My project on psychoacoustics explains how we perceive sounds in both objective and subjective ways. The pathway from objective sound to subjective interpretation can be categorized as (a) sensation, (b) perception, and (c) cognition of sound. My research on objective sound looks at the physical components of a musical soundwave, such as its waveform, envelope, and timbre; my presentation then explains how the sound information travels from the outer ear to the cochlea, through a web of brainstem and midbrain regions, before reaching the temporal lobe of the brain. The second part of my research focuses on perception, where I examine how sound perception is dependent on how sound waves interact with the environment before reaching the ear, and how some aspects of musical perception, such as pitch, are more objective, whereas others, such as duration and loudness, are more subjective. In my third and final section, I examine music cognition, which explains how listeners make sense of these sound components, stringing them together into a musical ‘necklace.’ How a listener draws subjective meaning from the sound ‘necklace’ is influenced by qualitative variables such as a listener’s cultural background, stage of life, social standing, musical experiences, and mood.