Abstract In this paper several meaningful audio icons of classic arcade games such as Pong, Donkey Kong, Mario World and Pac-Man are analyzed, using the PRAAT software for speech analysis and musical theory. The analysis results are used to describe how these examples of best practice sound design obtain their meaning in the player's perception. Some aspects can be related to the use of tonal hierarchy (e.g. Donkey Kong and Mario World) which is a western culture related aspect of musical meaning. Other aspects are related to universal expressions of meaning such as the theory of misattribution, prosody, vocalization and cross-modal perceptions such as brightness and the uncanny valley hypothesis. Recent studies in the field of cognitive neuroscience support the universal and meaningful potential of all these aspects. The relationship between language related prosody, vocalization and phonology, and music seems to be an especially successful design principle for universally meaningful music icons in game sound design.
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The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically-trained improvising and non-improvising musicians imagined playing along with recordings of familiar and unfamiliar music excerpts. We hypothesized that audiomotor transformation would be associated with the recruitment of dedicated cerebral networks, facilitating aurally-cued performance. Results indicate that while all classically-trained musicians engage a left-hemisphere network involved in motor skill and action recognition, only improvising musicians additionally recruit a right dorsal frontoparietal network dedicated to spatially-driven motor control. Mobilization of this network, which plays a crucial role in the real-time transformation of imagined or perceived music into goal-directed action, may be held responsible not only for the stronger activation of auditory cortex we observed in improvising musicians in response to the aural perception of music, but also for the superior ability to play ‘by ear’ which they demonstrated in a follow-up study. The results of this study suggest that the practice of improvisation promotes the implicit acquisition of hierarchical music syntax which is then recruited in top-down manner via the dorsal stream during music performance. In a study of audiomotor transformation in Parkinson patients, we demonstrated a dissociation between dysprosody in speech and music. While patients’ speech could reliably be distinguished from that of healthy individuals, purely on the basis of aural perception, no difference was observed between patients and healthy controls in their ability to sing improvised melodies.
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In this chapter we discuss the implications of our research in the wider context of current models of brain function, endeavoring to understand the consequences of score-dependence and improvisation in terms of the ‘predicting brain’, the dual-stream model of perception and action, the procedural-declarative model of learning and memory, ideomotor learning and sensorimotor mapping, and the implicit acquisition of hierarchical music syntax.
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Untrained listeners demonstrate implicit knowledge of syntactic patternsand principles. Untrained generative music ability, for example singing,humming, and whistling, is a largely unconscious or intuitive applicationof these patterns and principles. From the viewpoint of embodied cognition,listening to music should evoke an internal representation or motorimage which, together with the perception of organized music, shouldform the basis of musical cognition. Indeed, that is what listeners demonstratewhen they sing, hum, or whistle familiar and unfamiliar tunes orwhen they vocally or orally improvise continuations to interruptedphrases. Research on vocal improvisation using continuations sung to aninterrupted musical phrase, has shown that one’s cultural backgroundinfluences the music generated. That should be the case for instrumentalistsas well: when they play familiar or unfamiliar tunes by ear in differentkeys (transposition) or when they improvise variations,accompaniments, or continuations to interrupted phrases, the music theygenerate should reflect the same cognitive structures as their oral improvisations.This study is attempting to validate a test of (non) scoredependencythat will enable assessment of the music student’s implicitknowledge of these structures during performance on the principal instrument.
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The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically‐trained improvising and non‐improvising musicians imagined playing along with recordings of familiar and unfamiliar music excerpts. We hypothesized that audiomotor transformation would be associated with the recruitment of dedicated cerebral networks, facilitating aurally‐cued performance. Results indicate that while all classically‐trained musicians engage a left‐hemisphere network involved in motor skill and action recognition, only improvising musicians additionally recruit a right dorsal frontoparietal network dedicated to spatially‐driven motor control. Mobilization of this network, which plays a crucial role in the real‐time transformation of imagined or perceived music into goal‐directed action, may be held responsible not only for the stronger activation of auditory cortex we observed in improvising musicians in response to the aural perception of music, but also for the superior ability to play ‘by ear’ which they demonstrated in a follow‐up study. The results of this study suggest that the practice of improvisation promotes the implicit acquisition of hierarchical music syntax which is then recruited in top‐down manner via the dorsal stream during music performance.
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It will be hard to find a Dutchmen under 50 years old who is not able to understand and speak English. Dutch pupils in secondary education spend about 4 hours a week studying grammar, reading texts, listening to conversations and giving presentations, all in English and that for four to six years. They even study cultural and historical aspects of the English speaking world. Music, films and playing online-computer games all add to a better understanding of the English language. The quality of most Dutch vowels and consonants are quite close to the quality of many English vowels and consonants. Most of the time an English utterance produced with Dutch vowel and consonant qualities will still be easily understood by native speakers of English. Phonological interference does not automatically make a Dutchman’s English unintelligible. However, why is it so easy to recognise a Dutchman as being Dutch while speaking English? Would it not be worthwhile to try and achieve a near-native accent for our pupils and students?
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Procedureel leren is een ‘intelligent’ leerproces waarbij het brein in de volgorde van zowel de klanken die wij horen als de bewegingen die wij maken, patronen waarneemt, en daardoor in staat is om de muzikale ‘toekomst’ beter te voorspellen en daarop te anticiperen. Wij spreken een muziektaal waarvan de structuur aan complexe syntactische regels is onderworpen. Als wij het instrumentale muziekonderwijs onder de loep nemen, kunnen wij constateren dat er in de regel niet alleen de interactie die het syntactische leerproces karakteriseert ontbreekt, maar ook de syntaxis-conforme variatie in de samenstelling en de volgorde van elementaire patronen. Verbetering van procedurele kennis van de muziek-syntaxis zal leiden tot meer expressiviteit in het spel.
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Vaktherapie werkt aan tekorten/problemen met betrekking tot vier kerngebieden:zelfbeeld, emoties, cognitie en interactie. De vaktherapie richt zich op het opheffen of verminderen van tekorten met betrekking tot dynamisch criminogene factoren, anders gezegd: op risicofactoren uit de SAVRY (12‐18 jarigen) die een relatie hebben met de vier kerngebieden: ? voor het kerngebied zelfbeeld betreft dit de risicofactoren omgang met delinquente leeftijdsgenoten en negatieve opvattingen; ? voor het kerngebied emotie gaat het om de risicofactoren ervaren stress en copingvaardigheden, riskant gedrag/impulsiviteit en problemen bij omgaan met boosheid; ? voor het kerngebied interactie betreft het de risicofactoren omgang met delinquente leeftijdsgenoten, afwijzing door leeftijdsgenoten en gebrek aan berouw/empathie; ? voor het kerngebeid cognitie tenslotte gaat het om de risicofactoren afwijzing door leeftijdsgenoten, negatieve opvattingen en aandachtstekort hyperactiviteitprobleem
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Jan Van der Noot (c.1540-c.1601) is a central figure in Dutch literature, widely regarded as the first true Renaissance poet in the Netherlands. He was the earliest Dutch poet to imitate Ronsard, Baïf, and Petrarch, and the first to use the sonnetform. Van der Noot also has vital links with sixteenth-century England and English literature. While living in London (1567-72), he produced the source-text for Spenser and Roest's Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings. Yet despite this contribution, he is frequently overlooked by English-speaking critics. Even when he does receive consideration, he is seldom viewed as a poet in his own right. As an attempt to redress this, we offer here fresh translations from Van der Noot's work, lightly annotated throughout, concentrating on the sonnets that are the lynchpin of his reputation.
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This deaf-led work critically explores Deaf Tech, challenging conventional understandings of technologies ‘for’ deaf people as merely assistive and accessible, since these understandings are predominantly embedded in medical and audist ideologies. By employing participatory speculative workshops, deaf participants from different European countries envisioned technologies on Eyeth - a mythical planet inhabited by deaf people - centered on their perspectives and curiosities. The results present a series of alternative socio-technical narratives that illustrate qualitative aspects of technologies desired by deaf people. This study advocates for expanding the scope of deaf technological landscapes, emphasizing the needs of establishing deaf-centered HCI, including the development of methods and concepts that truly prioritize deaf experiences in the design of technologies intended for their use.
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