Scott D. Lipscomb, Jennifer Willis-Opalenik, and Donald A. Hodges,
Institute for Music
Research, University of Texas at San Antonio
A number of books are
available that survey the field of music psychology. Many of these
books are text only (e.g., Radocy & Boyle, 1988), and some have
an accompanying cassette or compact disc that provides audio examples
(e.g., Dowling & Harwood, 1986). None are currently available
that offer audio examples, visual examples, animations, simulations,
and demonstrations-all of which are under the interactive control of
the user. The purpose of this project is to develop a multimedia
CD-ROM companion to the second edition of the Handbook of
Music Psychology (Hodges, 1996).
The Handbook
includes the following 12 chapters:
The ultimate aim is to have multimedia materials developed for each chapter. Chapter Four was selected as a beginning point, in part because it already contains many illustrations and topics that could easily be complemented by interactive multimedia materials. At its current state of development, the multimedia companion to "Hearing and Music Perception" contains the following components:
Once these components are completed, work will begin on the other chapters.
Units of Chapter Four: Hearing and Music Perception
Hypertext
The entire text of chapter four has been set up so
that users can immediately jump to any page, a feature most useful to
those who have a copy of the textbook in hand. For example, a student
who has identified a topic for which he would like more information
can go directly to that page for additional supplemental materials.
Users can also use arrows to navigate forward and backward through
the text. All citations are highlighted and clicking on an author's
name brings up the full citation. Hotlinks are found throughout the
text; clicking on them takes the user to supplementary materials.
The Ear
One such hotlink takes the user to a unit on the
ear. Ibis unit contains a number of illustrations (color and black
and white) and micro-electron photographs. Using slide and flat bed
scanners, images were imported as PICT files into Director. Salient
features of the pictures are identified with "hot buttons" that link
to explanatory text and/or to additional images. Users can get
information and close up views of anatomical features, such as the
cochlea, hair cells, and so on.
Audio Examples
Many of the complex topics covered in the
Handbook are extremely difficult to explain using only text.
Therefore, it is absolutely essential that students of music actually
experience the sensory impressions discussed in a text that
introduces concepts outside of their area of expertise, such as
psychology, perception, and cognition. One of the reasons that we
decided to begin our multimedia project with examples from Chapter 4
of the Handbook is because of the frequent discussions of
psychophysical phenomena found therein, allowing ample opportunity
for auditory demonstrations. For example, many references are made to
the physical attributes of musical sound (frequency, amplitude,
signal shape, and time) and their perceptual correlates (pitch,
loudness, timbre, and duration), as well as other complex sensory
phenomena for which these fundamental characteristics lay the
groundwork. In the hypertext version of the Handbook, students
are able to read the same text that exists in the printed version. In
addition, however, they are provided opportunities to experience the
sounds being discussed with a simple click of the mouse. Textbooks
with accompanying cassettes or CDs cannot match this kind of
navigational convenience. In essence if students want more
information, they just click on one of the hyperlinks.
Some of these links will simply allow the student
to hear a sound file demonstrating the concept expressed in the text.
For example, to illustrate how sound energy interacts when two tones
are sounded simultaneously, a 1000 Hz tone is sounded for four
seconds, followed by a 1004 Hz tone, then both are sounded together.
Through the use of a simple auditory demonstration, the effects of
"constructive and destructive interference" and the resulting
perception of "beats" are made crystal clear. Similarly, to
demonstrate how complex sounds result from the combination of sine
components, musical instrument sounds will be built one partial at a
time so that the student can experience the resulting change in tone
quality.
It will also be beneficial to recreate stimuli
used in some of the most significant music psychology research. For
example, much discussion has taken place concerning the involvement
of a "central processor" in the brain that plays an important role in
the human perception of musical sound. Separate experiments by Roger
N. Shepard, Diana Deutsch, and Jean Claude Risset assisted in
confirming that the auditory processes involved in music listening
involve cognitive interpretation. Many textbooks refer to the Shepard
tone or Deutsch's tritone paradox-often describing the manner in
which these stimuli were created in minute detail-then go on to
discuss the relevance of the experimental results. Such presentations
often leave students with an incomplete, or even faulty,
understanding of the subject matter. With the multimedia companion, a
student could read the text and then click on a hyperlink to hear a
recreation of these sounds. If "a picture is worth a thousand words,"
then the value of an auditory example in these contexts is even
greater by an order of magnitude.
Simulations and Demonstrations
Perhaps the most unique and certainly the most
challenging aspect of the multimedia companion, is the creation of
novel software that will allow the student to explore concepts
introduced in the text. Most instructional software used in music
education tends to serve the purpose of either a tutorial or "drill
and instruction." In contrast, the purpose of the software included
on the multimedia CD-ROM companion is to provide the student with an
exploratory environment in which she or he can apply the knowledge
gained from the reading material in a hands-on manner. Two examples
will illustrate the advantages of allowing the student time to
experiment with learned concepts.
In the
Handbook, as
mentioned above, the student is introduced to the perceived "beats
that occur when two tones varying slightly in frequency are sounded
simultaneously. The text goes on to explain the crucial role that
critical bandwidth plays as the frequencies move farther apart and,
as a result, the beats become faster and faster. Using MIDI pitch
bend information, a computer program was written that allows the
student to control the frequency of one pitch while a second pitch
remains constant. As a result, the student is provided an opportunity
to explore interactively her or his individual perception of the
beats, roughness, and eventual perceived separation of these
frequencies into two distinct tones. In this interactive
instructional environment, the student is given a greater sense of
control in the learning process.
Software has also been designed enabling the
student to create complex signal shapes by determining the amplitudes
and phase relationships of each partial. A sound file can then be
created at any frequency between 100 Hz and 5 KHz, using the
specified signal shape. The student may then view an animation
illustrating the motion of an air molecule when encountered by a
waveform analogous to the complex signal created.
These software tools allow the student to take
facts learned from the text, apply them to a novel situation, and
create a sound object based on the acquired knowledge. It is
these higher levels of educational objectives to which our
educational institutions should aspire.. With the hypermedia CD-ROM
companion, we hope to provide students with a learning tool of
inestimable value, as well as a tool with which students can also
have a great deal of fun.
References
Dowling, W. J., & Harwood, D. (1986.) Music cognition.
Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Hodges, D. (Ed.). (1996.) Handbook of music psychology (2nd ed.). San Antonio: IMR Press.
Radocy, R. E., & Boyle, J. D. (1988.) Psychological foundations of musical behavior (2nd ed.) Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.