Abstract: LISTENING TO MUSIC OFTEN EVOKES affective states that are accompanied by distinctive subjective experiences and specific physiological changes. In this study, we examined the phenomenon of chills and its concomitant physiological reactions. In a preliminary study, experimenter-selected music excerpts were played to 27 participants, and musical passages especially apt toelicit chill experiences were identified on the basis of subjective ratings. In a subsequent study with 27 new participants, subjective chill experiences and physiological responses were recorded in real time. The highest numbers of chills were experienced during musical passages characterized by similar dynamic, harmonic, and structural characteristics, which coincided with distinct patterns of heart rate and skin conductance increases. For participants experiencing a chill during these passages, increases in skin conductance were significantly larger than for participants without chills. The heart rate response did not differ between groups.

Abstract: THE PROCESSING OF COMPLEX, METRICALLY ambiguous rhythmic patterns, of the sort found in much popular music, remains poorly understood. We investigated listeners9 abilities to perceive, process and produce complex, syncopated rhythmic patterns. Rhythmic complexity was varied along a continuum, quantified using an objective metric of syncopation suggested by Longuet-Higgins and Lee. Participants (a) tapped in time to the rhythms, (b) reproduced the same patterns given a steady pulse, and (c) recognized these patterns when replayed both immediately and after a 24-hour delay. Participants tended to reset the phase of their internally generated pulse with highly syncopated rhythms, reinterpreting or "re-hearing" the rhythm as less syncopated. High complexity in rhythmic stimuli can thus force a reorganization of their cognitive representation. Less complex rhythms were more robustly encoded than more complex syncopated rhythms in the delayed memory task. Syncopated rhythms provide a useful tool for future explorations of human rhythmic competence.

Abstract: WHEN NONMUSICIANS TAP with isochronous auditory tone sequences, the taps typically precede the tone onsets. However, when the tone inter-onset interval (IOI) is increased beyond 2 s, an increasing proportion of taps follows the tone onsets by 150 ms or more. Such responses indicate reactions rather than anticipations, and they have been interpreted as reflecting a rate limit of synchronization related to a temporal limit of auditory working memory. In the present study, musicians and nonmusicians were asked to synchronize their taps with sequences whose IOIs ranged from 1000 to 3500 ms. Nonmusicians showed much larger anticipation errors and higher variability but actually fewer reactive responses than musicians. No clear landmarks of a rate limit for synchronization were observed.

Abstract: ORNAMENTATION IS ONE ASPECT OF MUSIC ASSOCIATED with emotional affect in Baroque music. In an empirical study, the relationship between ornamentation and emotion was investigated by asking a violinist and flutist to ornament three melodies in different ways to express four emotions: happiness, sadness, love, and anger. The performers adapted the type of ornaments to the instructed emotion as well as the characteristics of the ornaments. The flutist specifically varied the duration, timing, and complexity of the ornamentation, while the violinist varied the complexity, density, and sound level of the performances. The ability of the performers to communicate the emotions was tested in a listening experiment. Communication was found to be generally successful, with the exception of the communication of happiness. This success was not due to general consensus about the expression of emotions through ornamentation. Rather the listeners were sensitive to a performer's specific use of ornamentation.

Abstract: HOW DOES AN EXPERIENCED performer memorize when learning a new piece quickly, in just a few hours of practice? To find out, a concert pianist recorded her practice as she learned Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. She also provided detailed reports on the formal structure of the piece, the performance cues that she selected to attend to while playing, and other decisions about technique and interpretation. These reports were used to determine what she paid attention to during practice and where she had difficulty with memory retrieval. Retrieval practice was one of the main activities throughout the 4 3/4 hours needed to prepare the piece for performance. The pianist tried to play from memory almost from the start, used the musical structure to organize practice, and worked on performance cues to speed up retrieval from long-term memory. Performers practice memory retrieval, even when practice time is limited.

Abstract: FEW WESTERN RESEARCHERS HAVE STUDIED music in everyday life. Data were collected from 200 Pakistani participants to address whether Western findings could be generalized to non-Western samples. Music was heard in everyday life by a large number of participants; most musical experiences occurred while participants were with friends; Pakistani classical and Western pop music were heard most frequently; liking for the music varied depending on who the participant was with, where they were, and whether they had chosen to be able to hear music; music was usually experienced during the course of some other activity; exposure to music occurred more frequently in the evening and at weekends; music was heard mostly at home; and the importance of several functions of music depended upon whom the participant was with and the place where the music was heard. These findings are compared with those from earlier Western research.

Abstract: MUSICIANS OFTEN MAKE GESTURES and move their bodies expressing a musical intention. In order to explore to what extent emotional intentions can be conveyed through musicians' movements, participant ...