Abstract

The current study extends the efforts of Bischoff Renninger, Granot and Donchin (2003) to non-Western musical systems and focuses specifically on Event- Related Potential (ERP) responses to scalar deviations within the Javanese pélog scale by groups of musicians trained within the Western and Javanese systems. The principal aim is to ascertain whether results found in previous experiments may be obtained crossculturally. Participants include five subjects trained in the Western system only (control group) and five subjects trained in both the Western and Javanese systems (experimental group). Tasks include identifying scalar deviations within the Western diatonic scale, identifying scalar deviations within the Javanese pèlog scale, and identifying target letters in a visual control task. ERP and overt behavioral responses are recorded. Results show significant differences between group responses to diatonic and Javanese scale conditions. Interesting results also arise in terms of how tones and intervals in the different scales are conceptualized by subjects in both groups. Control subjects especially tend to assimilate pélog scale intervals to intervals in the Western equaltempered scale.

Abstract

Electrophysiological measures of expectancy violation processing by the brain, such as the P300 component of the event-related potential, have provided insight into the way in which humans with varying amounts of musical experience maintain representations of musical information, in particular tonal representations. Bischoff Renninger and colleagues (2006) seek to extend this work by examining the P300 in the context of the very interesting topic of cross-cultural music perception, using Western listeners who either have or have not undergone training in Javanese music. Their study highlights the myriad issues and complexities of experimental design and analysis that must be addressed if one is to conduct an ethologically compelling and interpretable study of musical context representations using brain responses as dependent measures.

Abstract

Mashinter’s (2006) mathematical model of sensory dissonance neglects the dependence of roughness on waveform, the role of masking, the distribution of roughness across critical bands, the possible positive contribution of fusion or toneness to euphony, and the familiarity and music-theoretical functions of a sonority. Of course not all these aspects can reasonably be included in a model, but they can affect the data with which its predictions are compared.

Abstract

Cook & Fujisawa (2006) point out that, contrary to the predictions of psychoacoustic models, the diminished triad is more consonant and prevalent in western tonal music than the augmented. A possible simple explanation is that the diminished triad often functions as an incomplete dominant (major-minor) seventh chord, the most prevalent tetrad in mainstream tonal music.