Category: Uncategorized

A Causal Framework for Cross-Cultural Generalizability

The article we will be reading on the 11th of October is a methods paper that proposes a framework for investigating cross-cultural generalizability and what that means from the point of view of a modeling. We will frame the discussion around issues of generalizability in music cognition research. Below are two supplemental articles that are related to the target article that might further inform the context. This is particularly relevant for some discussions we will be having later this month with some guests here in Amsterdam regarding cross cultural research. 

Link to Slide Deck

Readings

Deffner, D., Rohrer. JM., McElreath, R. (2022). A Causal Framework for Cross-Cultural Generalizability. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. 5(3). doi:10.1177/25152459221106366

Jacoby, N., Margulis, E. H., Clayton, M., Hannon, E., Honing, H., Iversen, J., … & Wald-Fuhrmann, M. (2020). Cross-cultural work in music cognition: Challenges, insights, and recommendations. Music Perception, 37(3), 185-195.

Kaplan, T., Cannon, J., Jamone, L., & Pearce, M. (2022). Modeling enculturated bias in entrainment to rhythmic patterns. PLOS Computational Biology, 18(9), e1010579.

Coordinates

Tuesday 11 October 2022, 11.00–12.30 @ Zoom Location

Musical language models

In this extra meeting, jointly organized with the Cognition, Language and Computation Lab, we discuss language models in music. More precisely, we discuss the paper by Castellon, Donahue and Liang published at ISMIR last year. The authors find that representations of OpenAI’s music generation system Jukebox can be used as input for several downstream tasks: tagging, genre classification, key detection, and emotion recognition.

Readings

Castellon, R., Donahue, C., & Liang, P. (2021). Codified audio language modeling learns useful reperesentation for music information retrieval. Proceedings of the 22th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2021), 88–96. https://archives.ismir.net/ismir2021/paper/000010.pdf

Coordinates

Tuesday 18 January 2022, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 894 0113 1331)

Cultural diversity in MIR

Music information retrieval heavily relies on concepts borrowed from Western musics (from equal temperament and isochronous beats to measures and the major-minor distinction), which may not always be appropriate for ‘other’ traditions. This years ISMIR conference hosted a special call for musical diversity in MIR and in this reading group we will briefly discuss three of these papers. Starting with the winner of a best paper award, De-centering the West discusses ethical issues surrounding AI and music in the light of East Asian philosophies. Second, a paper by Lee and colleagues investigates how mood in music is perceived in different cultures, and how well this corresponds to automatic methods. The study by Ozaki and colleagues also compares automatic methods with humans: how well do automatic transcription methods perform on global samples of songs, and do humans even agree?

Readings

Please read the abstract of all three papers, and pick one of the three papers to read in full. We have 30mins for each paper.

Huang, R., Sturm, B. L. T., & Holzapfel, A. (2021). De-centering the West: East Asian Philosophies and the Ethics of Applying Artificial Intelligence to Music. Proceedings of the 22th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2021). https://archives.ismir.net/ismir2021/paper/000037.pdf

Ozaki, Y., Mcbride, J., Benetos, E., Pfordresher, P., Six, J., Tierney, A., Proutskova, P., Sakai, E., Kondo, H., Fukatsu, H., Fujii, S., & Savage, P. E. (2021, July 10). Agreement among human and automated transcriptions of global songs. Proceedings of the 22th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2021). https://archives.ismir.net/ismir2021/paper/000062.pdf

Lee, H., Höger, F., Schönwiesner, M., Park, M., & Jacoby, N. (2021). Cross-cultural mood perception in pop songs and its alignment with mood detection algorithms. Proceedings of the 21th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2021). https://archives.ismir.net/ismir2021/paper/000045.pdf

Coordinates

Tuesday 23 November 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 817 9020 3427)

Assymetry in musical scales

After an extended summer break we resume the reading group with a PNAS paper by Pelofi and Farbood investigating whether assymetry in musical scales makes it easier to learn new musical structures. In three experiments, the authors study the acquisition of tonal hierarchy and melodic regularity using melodies generated using finite-state or Markov chain grammars, in 12, 14 and 16 tone equal temperament. Performance improved with scale structures with unique intervals between notes, suggesting that the symmetry of scales influences the learning of musical structures.

Readings

Pelofi, C., & Farbood, M. M. (2021). Asymmetry in scales enhances learning of new musical structures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(31), e2014725118. https://doi.org/10/gmw83f

Thanks to Henkjan for suggesting this paper.

Coordinates

Tuesday 26 (!) October 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 839 5216 6034). We are considering making this a hybrid event.

Silence as music

In this reading group, Anya Farennikova will present some of her recent work on silence in music.

Abstract. Silence takes many forms in music and is said to be indispensable to music. Recent research shows that the auditory cortex remains active during musical silence. Drawing on research on auditory predictions and auditory imagery, I present the hypothesis that the deployment of the auditory cortex during periods of silence serves two distinct roles in the appreciation of silence in music. Based on this hypothesis, I develop a philosophical argument that these roles correspond to two ways in which silence can become musical. I conclude by highlighting a challenge that this hypothesis implies for the empirical research on musical silence.

Readings

The draft cannot be shared publicly. Please contact Bas Cornelissen if you would like to join the reading group and get a copy of the draft.

Coordinates

Tuesday June 8 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 849 1069 3479)

Unrewarding predictions: Musical anhedonia

Most people like music: listening to music is rewarding. But not for everyone. In this reading group we look at musical anhedonia: the lack of pleasure from listening to music. We disucss a review of recent research by Belfi and Loui, who also propose a model of hedonic responses to music.

Readings

Belfi, A. M., & Loui, P. (2020). Musical anhedonia and rewards of music listening: Current advances and a proposed model. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1464(1), 99–114. https://doi.org/10/ggsfx8

Thanks to Fleur for suggesting the paper.

Coordinates

Tuesday April 13 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 848 9980 1325)

Music during lockdown

Long, long ago, we used to get together for this reading group. In the same room. Well over a year later, we have found ways to live through a pandemic. What role has music played in that? And how have we made music? What music have we listened to? This reading group is all about music during lockdown. It is a preparation for the LOCOMUS meeting on May 7th, which focusses on the same theme. Instead of reading a single article, you are invited to read an article from the Frontiers topic “Social convergence in times of social distancing: The Role of Music During the COVID-19 Pandemic“, edited by Niels Hansen, Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann and Jane Whitfield Davidson. During the reading group you give a quick summary of the paper you’ve read, to open the discussion. Please add your name behind one of the papers in this spreadsheet so we can structure the discussion a little bit.

Readings

An article of your choice from the Frontiers topic “Social convergence in times of social distancing: The Role of Music During the COVID-19 Pandemic“. Please sign up for one of the papers in this spreadsheet.

Coordinates

Tuesday May 4 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 833 6439 7353)

Beat perception and motor neurophysiology

In this reading group we discuss a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences paper by Cannon & Patel: How Beat Perception Co-opts Motor Neurophysiology (abstract below). Fleur Bouwer will open the discussion.

Abstract “Beat perception offers cognitive scientists an exciting opportunity to explore how cognition and action are intertwined in the brain even in the absence of movement. Many believe the motor system predicts the timing of beats, yet current models of beat perception do not specify how this is neurally implemented. Drawing on recent insights into the neurocomputational properties of the motor system, we propose that beat anticipation relies on action-like processes consisting of precisely patterned neural time-keeping activity in the supplementary motor area (SMA), orchestrated and sequenced by activity in the dorsal striatum. In addition to synthesizing recent advances in cognitive science and motor neuroscience, our framework provides testable predictions to guide future work.”

Readings

Cannon, J. J., & Patel, A. D. (2021). How Beat Perception Co-opts Motor Neurophysiology. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(2), 137–150. https://doi.org/10/ghxvhc

Optional: Cannon, J. (2020). PIPPET: A Bayesian framework for generalized entrainment to stochastic rhythms [Preprint]. Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.05.369603

Presentation: https://youtu.be/D2NgKgbQ4vA?t=1596 (thanks to Marianne for sharing)

Coordinates

Tuesday Mar 16 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 811 4391 3496)

Modes from Renaissance to Romantic music

Western (classical) music is commonly said to use two modes: major and minor. These two modes historically emerged from traditions using many more modes, from eight modes of Gregorian chant to around four modes in Renaissance polyphony—the exact number can be debated. A recent corpus study by Harasim and colleagues tries to infer how many modes were used in different eras. Their findings indeed point to four modes in music from the Renaissance, two modes in the Baroque and Classical era, and no clear separation in the Romantic era.

Readings

Harasim, D., Moss, F. C., Ramirez, M., & Rohrmeier, M. (2021). Exploring the foundations of tonality: Statistical cognitive modeling of modes in the history of Western classical music. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 5. https://doi.org/10/ghv373

Coordinates

Tuesday Feb 16 2021, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 876 8438 9978)

Metrical cues in Turkish makam and Western folksongs

Do listeners from different cultures listen for different things when they perceive a meter? Classical theories suggest onsets and accents on strong beats are the main cues. But could different idioms provide other idiom-specific cues, that enculturated listeners pick up? In the study we read today, Bastiaan van der Weij investigated whether such cues—statistical affordances—could be found in Turkish makam and Western folksongs, by comparing computational models of meter perception. The study indeed finds complex, idiom-specific cues in both traditions. An enculturated model of meter perception seems to be able to pick up such cues in both traditions. The classical model, however, cannot exploit such cues in makam music. Bastiaan wil open the discussion with a short presentation of his work.

Readings

Coordinates

Tuesday Dec 15 2020, 12.30–14.00 @ Zoom (Meeting ID: 810 0922 5771)

Discussant

Bastiaan van der Weij will open the discussion.