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Publisher Summary This chapter explores the grouping mechanisms in music. Music provides a complexity, rapidly changing acoustic spectrum, often derived from the superposition of sounds from many different sources. Auditory system has the task of analyzing this spectrum so as to reconstruct the originating sound events. This is analogous to the task performed by visual system when it interprets the mosaic of light impinging on the retina in terms of visually perceived objects. The chapter considers the relationships between the components of a sound spectrum that leads to fuse them into a unitary sound image and those that lead to separate them into multiple sound images. In particular, the chapter explores two types of relationship. The first is harmonicity. Natural sustained sounds, such as produced by musical instruments and the human voice, are made up of components that stand in harmonic, or near-harmonic, relation. A second relationship that is explored is onset synchronicity. When components of a sound complex begin at the same time, it is likely that they have originated from the same source; conversely, when they begin at different times, it is likely that they have originated from different sources. Finally, the illusions explored in the chapter show that listeners do not necessarily music in accordance with the written score, or as might be imagined from reading a score.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews two approaches to the issue of the way elements of perceptual arrays are grouped together. The first approach assumes that the perceptual system forms groupings based on a number of primitive organizational principles. Another approach to perceptual organization argues that the observer employs perceptual principles that give rise to the most effective interpretation of the environment. The chapter describes the perception of auditory and musical patterns from several points of view. The chapter explores ways in which the elements of auditory arrays are perceptually grouped together and focuses on the types of shape abstractions carried out by the auditory system. It is clear from the phenomena that auditory perception is mediated by a highly complex and sophisticated system.

There are certain well-known relationships between handedness and mode of brain organization. For instance, the large majority of right-handers have speech represented in the left cerebral hemisphere; however, of the left-handed population, about two-thirds have speech represented in the left hemisphere and about one-third in the right. Furthermore, whereas right-handers tend to show a clear-cut dominance of the left hemisphere for speech, a significant proportion of left-handers have some speech represented in both cerebral hemispheres. Therefore, left-handers as a group differ from right-handers, and are also more heterogeneous than right-handers, both in terms of direction of cerebral dominance and also in terms of degree of dominance (Goodglass & Quadfasel, 1954; Hecaen & de Ajureaguerra, 1964; Hecaen & Piercy, 1956; Hecaen & Sauget, 1971; Milner, Branch, & Rasmussen, 1966; Subirana, 1969; Zangwill, 1960). Recently, interest has developed in the possibility that such neurological differences might be reflected in ability differences of various types. Thus, some investigators have argued for a relationship between leftor mixedhandedness and reading disability (Ginsburg & Hartwick, 1971; Satz & Sparrow, 1970; Shearer, 1968; Wold, 1968; Wussler & Barclay, 1970; Zurif & Carson, 1970; but see also Applebee, 1971; Hartlag & Green, 1971). Others have presented evidence that left-handers or mixed-handers perform more poorly than right-handers on visuospatial tasks (Levy, 1969; Miller, 1971; Silverman, Adevai, & McGough, 1966; but also see Newcombe & Ratliff, 1973). In both cases, explanations have been advanced in terms of a more bilateral representation of speech and related functions in the mixed or left-handed groups. The present study demonstrates that lefthanders with mixed hand preference show enhanced performance on certain auditory tasks, and it is hypothesized that this superiority also reflects a bilateral representation of function. It is further suggested that some of the discrepancies in the literature may be due to the heterogeneity of the left-handed and mixed-handed groups; and that a fourway classification of handedness based on hand used in writing and on consistency of hand preference would produce more homogeneous results.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the processing of pitch combinations. It examines the ways in which pitch combinations are abstracted by the perceptual system. First, it inquires into the types of abstraction that give rise to the perception of local features, such as intervals, chords, and pitch classes. Such features can be considered analogous to those of orientation and angle size in vision. Other low-level abstractions result in the perception of global features, such as contour. Next, the chapter considers how combinations of features are abstracted to give rise to perceptual equivalences and similarities. Then it examines how these higher level abstractions are themselves combined according to various rules. The distinction between abstractions that are formed passively from “bottom up” and those that occur from “top down” is important in music. Both types of processes play important roles in musical shape analysis. These findings have contributed to the groundwork on which an understanding of the processing of pitch combinations can be based.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses memory and attention in music. Musical memory must involve a highly complex and differentiated system where information is retained simultaneously at many levels of abstraction. Substantial effects on memory performance are produced by including in interpolated sequence notes of the same pitch as one or other of the notes to be compared. Such effects may be either facilitatory or disruptive. A great increase in errors is produced in sequences when the test notes differ in pitch and when a note that is identical in pitch to the second test note is included in the interpolated sequence. This effect depends largely upon the serial position of the repeated note and a far greater increase in errors occurs when this note is placed in the second serial position of a sequence of six interpolated notes than when it is placed in the fifth serial position Such repetition effects are probably because of the deterioration of information along a time, or order continuum. It is found that when two notes are presented either simultaneously or in succession, a musical interval is perceived, and a perceptual similarity exists among intervals with component notes separated by the same frequency ratio.