A dynamically minimalist cognitive explanation of musical preference: is familiarity everything?

This paper examines the idea that attraction to music is generated at a cognitive level through the formation and activation of networks of interlinked "nodes." Although the networks involved are vast, the basic mechanism for activating the links is relatively simple. Two comprehensive cognitive-behavioral models of musical engagement are examined with the aim of identifying the underlying cognitive mechanisms and processes involved in musical experience. A "dynamical minimalism" approach (after Nowak, 2004) is applied to re-interpret musical engagement (listening, performing, composing, or imagining any of these) and to revise the latest version of the reciprocal-feedback model (RFM) of music processing. Specifically, a single cognitive mechanism of "spreading activation" through previously associated networks is proposed as a pleasurable outcome of musical engagement. This mechanism underlies the dynamic interaction of the various components of the RFM, and can thereby explain the generation of positive affects in the listener's musical experience. This includes determinants of that experience stemming from the characteristics of the individual engaging in the musical activity (whether listener, composer, improviser, or performer), the situation and contexts (e.g., social factors), and the music (e.g., genre, structural features). The theory calls for new directions for future research, two being (1) further investigation of the components of the RFM to better understand musical experience and (2) more rigorous scrutiny of common findings about the salience of familiarity in musical experience and preference.

Music, IQ, and the executive function.

This article is a commentary on 'Examining the association between music lessons and intelligence' (Schellenberg, 2011).

Developing identities and attitudes in musicians and classroom music teachers.

BACKGROUND: The Western classical training of many secondary music specialist teachers may be inappropriate for the demands of the contemporary secondary school classroom, leading to a conflict between their self-concepts as 'musicians' and as 'teachers'. AIMS: To undertake a short-term longitudinal comparison of the developing identities and the attitudes of a group of intending specialist secondary music teachers, during the transition into their first teaching post, with a group of music students from university and conservatory backgrounds. SAMPLE: Twenty-nine trainee music teachers completed Phases 1 and 2 of the study during their final weeks of training and during the second term of their teaching career, and a comparison group of 29 final-year undergraduate music students did so in the first and last terms of their final year. METHOD: A specially devised composite Musical Careers Questionnaire gathered information in both phases about self-efficacy in music and in teaching, identification with professional groups in these two domains, and attitudes towards important skills for musicians and teachers. RESULTS: A series of ANOVAs comparing the student groups' scores in each of the two phases revealed no significant main effects or interactions for either of the self-efficacy measures, a significant group effect for professional group identification, and some changes in the attitude measures. CONCLUSION: Although participants' views of their own general effectiveness as teachers and as musicians changed very little over the period of the study, their attitudes towards music teaching and perceptions of the skills required showed some changes.

Problem music and self-harming.

Academics and protest groups have claimed that "problem music" (hard rock, hip hop/rap, & punk) causes self-injurious thoughts/behaviors among fans. In this study we investigated whether the relationship is mediated by self-esteem, delinquency, and conservatism; and whether first exposure to problem music preceded self-injurious thoughts. A liking for problem music was associated with four of the five self-injurious measures, although these significant relationships were weakened (into nonsignificance in the case of two self-injurious measures) when the mediating variables were included. Listening to problem music did not precede self-injurious thoughts. Problem music is associated with self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, but this relationship is mediated by other factors and the former does not seem to cause the latter.

Brief report: Labelling effects on the perceived deleterious consequences of pop music listening.

Several correlational studies have supported the claim of conservative protestors that there exists a positive relationship between listening to pop music and adolescent problem behaviours. However, research on the so-called 'prestige effects' has shown that experimental participants' responses to music can be mediated by manipulations of prior information concerning that music. This study investigated whether perceptions of deleterious effects of pop songs on listeners may be attributable to prior labelling of those stimuli as 'problem music'. Eighty undergraduates were played songs that they were told were either suicide-inducing or life-affirming. Subsequent ratings of the songs indicated that those presented as 'suicide-inducing' were perceived as such, whereas presentation of the same songs in a 'life-affirming' frame led to the perception of them as such. These findings indicate that censorship and the subsequent labelling of certain songs as 'problematic' might itself cause these songs to have deleterious effects on listeners.

Gender bias in the evaluation of new age music.

Eminent composers in Western European art music continue to be predominantly male and eminence in contemporary pop music is similarly male dominated. One contributing factor may be the continuing under-valuation of women's music. Possible anti-female bias in a contemporary genre was investigated using the Goldberg paradigm to elicit judgments of New Age compositions. Since stronger stereotyping effects occur when information provided about individuals is sparse, fictitious male and female composers were presented either by name only or by name with a brief biography. Evidence for anti-female bias was found in the name-only condition and was stronger when liking for the music was controlled. Other findings were the tendency for females to give higher ratings, and the association of gender differences in liking of the music with ratings of quality in the name-only condition. These results are relevant to the design of formal assessment procedures for musical composition.

Age variations in judgments of 'great' art works.

This paper reports the results of two large-scale surveys concerning nominations of 'greatness' in the arts. In Study 1, 1088 respondents to a national newspaper survey nominated the greatest art works of the past 1000 years. Analyses indicated that there was some, albeit limited, evidence that older respondents nominated older art works, but no evidence of a tendency to nominate works produced during the participants' adolescence/early adulthood. In Study 2, a very brief questionnaire distributed through a CD retail chain, a national newspaper, and a national TV station asked 12,502 participants to nominate up to three of the greatest pop musicians of all time. Analyses indicated a tendency to nominate musicians who were successful while the participants themselves were in adolescence/early adulthood. These results are discussed in terms of the extent to which age can explain judgments of artistic 'greatness' within different art forms.

Building and Accessing Clausal Representations: The Advantage of First Mention versus the Advantage of Clause Recency.

We investigated two seemingly contradictory phenomena: the Advantage of the First-Mentioned Participant (participants mentioned first in a sentence are more accessible than participants mentioned second) and the Advantage of the Most Recent Clause (concepts mentioned in the most recent clause are more accessible than concepts mentioned in an earlier clause). We resolved this contradiction by measuring how quickly comprehenders accessed participants mentioned in the first versus second clauses of two-clause sentences. Our data supported the following hypotheses: Comprehenders represent each clause of a two-clause sentence in its own mental substructure. Comprehenders have greatest access to information in the substructure that they are currently developing; that is, they have greatest access to the most recent clause. However, at some point, the first clause becomes more accessible because the substructure representing the first clause of a two-clause sentence serves as a foundation for the whole sentence-level representation.

Accessing Sentence Participants: The Advantage of First Mention.

We investigate the following finding concerning the order in which participants are mentioned in sentences: In a probe recognition task, probe words are responded to considerably more rapidly when they are the names of the first- as opposed to the second-mentioned participants. Seven experiments demonstrated that this advantage is not attributable to the tendency in English for first-mentioned participants to be semantic agents; neither is it due to the fact that in many of our experiments, the first-mentioned participants were also the initial words of their stimulus sentences. Furthermore, the advantage is not attenuated when the first- and second-mentioned participants share syntactic subjecthood, or even when the first-mentioned participants are not the syntactic subjects. In sum, the effect does not appear to be attributable to linguistic factors. We suggest instead that it is the result of cognitive processes: Building a coherent mental representation requires first laying a foundation and then mapping subsequent information onto the developing representation. First-mentioned participants are more accessible because they form the foundations for their sentence. Level representations and because it is through them that subsequent information gets mapped onto the developing representations.