Makes sense to me, but it also seems to me that prior knowledge and expectation bias could change one's perception of anything, wouldn't it?
Expectation and musical perception
The PBS series "Closer to Truth" did a episode on "How Do Human Brains Experience Music?"
https://youtu.be/1TsitZvvcsw?si=UnTa-wlFnrrFiTnB
in which they explained the complex pathway by which the brain turns perception of sound into recognizable speech or music. Most significantly Prof Elizabeth Margulis of Princeton states that prior knowledge in the brain actually changes what we perceive when listening to music. The whole show is worth watching but at least check out her segment around the 23 minute mark.
What I get from this is that when listening to music the issue of expectation bias is HUGE. If the brain is expecting something it can open the door to hearing it, and the reverse is also true.
I see relevance here to the many on-going discussions on this forum. What do you think?
Some of you may beinterested in Dr. Margulis books or the work of her Music Cogntion Lab at
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FWIW, it's easy to agree with the general statement about expectations (and resultant perceptions). This is why serious audiophiles so often refer to 'listening skills' or the lack thereof. Unfortunately obtaining listening skills can be both time consuming and expensive, something many can not afford, not to mention the need to keep and open mind for those who like fresh air. :-) |
Two pattern of sounds act as in steganography the superposition of two geometrical colored patterns and then can initiate a veiled or hidden third one image... The impact of Bach music is especially clear by his use of superposed melodic lines...Counterpoint is steganographical... We perceive what we had learn to perceive relatively to our own innate biases but also with our own sound deciphering learned history by what Goethe called " exact sensorial imagination". Some level of synesthesia may be also implicated to some point... I myself hear music as geometrical flow in my "sensorial imagination" ... Dr. Margulis is right... Thanks for the recommendation... https://twitter.com/DenisLabelleX/status/1757510366639038928 As i said here often we must LEARN how to hear and listen all our life... This is also why acoustic is so deeply educative... Music is by his content interpretation an education of attention duration , focus and span ... Also music contain cultural consciousness level information which cannot be reach otherwise...
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What is sad is that most people looking for a good sound think that investing in a 100,000 bucks gear system ( with not even a dedicated room acoustic) is the key...Instead of studying basic mechanical,electrical and acoustical knowledge... it is why i cannot take seriously most audio thread which are about gear expanse and branded name consumerism... |
I’m glad you like the link @mahgister, you were one of the people I was thinking of when I decided to post it. I have enjoyed some of your postings on the nature of music and sound. I totally agree that price and sound quality of audio gear have a weak correlation after a certain dollar threshold is crossed. Isn’t it interesting that Dr. Margulis and the inventor to the BAACH system that you admire are both at Princeton? I live about a 90 minute drive from there and would love to find a way to talk to these people or at least hear them. I even drove to Princeton one time for an audiophile meeting just on the hope that I might make a connection, but alas, no luck. Btw the twitter link you provided did not work for me.
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Thanks indeed for this interesting information... The link does not work anymore...😁 But the image i suggested to understand how 2 or 3 or many patterns conjointed can create a new emerging pattern which wait to be perceived, this image is in this wikipedia article : music and sound are as in these images set a soul steganography...A fractals set of meanings made flesh by sound flows... Music is the best means and tool with mathematics , especially geometry, with Nature forms and colors, to increase attention and intention ...As said Goethe an act of "exact sensorial imagination"... A mandala or a mantra, a prayer as well as a creative act... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
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That is a perfect analogy for something demonstrated in an earlier portion of the Closer to Truth episode where a very familiar tune is played but it has been altered to randomly assign each note to an octave above or below it. It is unrecognizable. Then they play it unaltered after which you hear the altered version once more and it can be recognized. You hear it differently with the added knowledge. It is also why they find people from different cultures will have different emotional reactions to the same music. |
some of my most interesting experiences were in hearing a piece for the first time that confounded expectations. When I heard the first moveemnt of Bartoks Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the strands of music that seem to have a vague emptiness suddenly coalesce into a shattering climax that left me breathless because while it did germinate from the original seeds, it did in a way that was so unexpected that it startled. in a lesser way Mozart continually confounded his contemporaries by having his music go in directions that no contemporaries could pmatch, but always managing to make it seem a natural outgrowth of what had come previously. Mozart is just as origian las Bartok, but the Bartok seems more daring because our brains haven't prepared us for what happens next |
Very good examples...Thanks.... I will put Scriabin juggling with tonal and atonal borders as another example of supreme creativity ...
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"prior knowledge in the brain actually changes what we perceive when listening to music." My take: What has been called subjectivity is actually objective, and what is objective is experienced as subjective. In other words: We can now get rid of the distinction because it has proved too crude. We need other terms. |
It is very well described in psychoacoustics for sound and music where correlation between objective parameters and subjective impressions are never confused or conflated but distinguished. Goethe studies in the physiology of perception for colors explore this borders between subjective and objective impressions. It was a pioneering works. It is also well described by phenomenology of perception studies in general beginning with Merleau Ponty among others. Then no need to ban words or replace them , only refine and contextualize their use and meanings... The concept of intersubjectivity in phenomenology is only an example, of a subjective experience or/and of an objective experience which correlate in some way in some level with one another when two subjectivity communicate in some cultural area . But for sure you are right about the fact that this distinction between pure subjectivity and pure objectivity is not only crude but illusory. In audio threads the subjective school and the objectivist fad opposition illustrate well simplistic attitude at works... 😊
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Of course prior experience or “knowledge” affects how we experience music. |