Data processing in music performance research: Using structural information to improve score-performance matching

In order to study aspects of music performance, one has to find correspondences between the performance data and a score. Locating the corresponding score note for every performance note, calledmatching, is therefore a common task. An algorithm that automates this procedure is called amatcher. Automated matching is difficult because performers make errors, performers use expressive timing, and scores are frequently underspecified. To find the best match, most matchers use information about pitch, temporal order, and the number of matched notes. We show that adding information about the musical structure of the score gives better results. However, we found that even this information was insufficient to identify some types of performance errors and that a definition of best match based only on the number of matched notes is sometimes problematic. We provide some suggestions about how to achieve greater improvements.     

The Effect of Musical Mode on Verbal and Spatial Task Performance

Music in the major mode is often associated with happy feelings, which could enhance task performance, compared with that in the minor mode, which is associated more with sadness. Male and female participants (N = 48) completed written verbal and spatial reasoning tests while a piece of music in F major by Handel was being played, and again when the same piece was digitally manipulated to create a version in the minor mode. The confounding variable of using two different compositions was thus avoided. Results showed that the music in the major mode was rated more emotionally positive by both sexes than was the minor mode version (p ≤ .001). Performance by females on verbal tasks was significantly enhanced with major mode music, compared with the minor (p = .018), but there were no such findings for other combinations of sex and task. Also with major mode music only, there were trends for females to score higher than males on verbal tasks, and for males to score the highest on spatial tasks. Reasons for the research findings are suggested.     

Manual motor reaction while being absorbed into popular music

In three experiments, we investigated the behavioral consequences of being absorbed into music on performance in a concurrent task. We tested two competing hypotheses: Based on a cognitive load account, captivation of attention by the music and state absorption might slow down reactions in the decisional task. Alternatively, music could induce spontaneous motor activity, and being absorbed in music might result in a more autonomous, flow-driven behavior with quicker motor reactions. Participants performed a simple, visual, two-alternative forced-choice task while listening to popular musical excerpts. Subsequently, they rated their subjective experience using a short questionnaire. We presented music in four tempo categories (between 80 and 140 BPM) to account for a potential effect of tempo and an interaction between tempo and absorption. In Experiment 1, absorption was related to decreased reaction times (RTs) in the visual task. This effect was small, as expected in this setting, but replicable in Experiment 2. There was no effect of the music’s tempo on RTs but a tendency of mind wandering to relate to task performance. After slightly changing the study setting in Experiment 3, flow predicted decreased RTs, but absorption alone — as part of the flow construct — did not predict RTs. To sum up, we demonstrated that being absorbed in music can have the behavioral consequence of speeded manual reactions in specific task contexts, and people seem to integrate the music into an active, flow-driven and therefore enhanced performance. However, shown relations depend on task settings, and a systematic study of context is necessary to understand how induced states and their measurement contribute to the findings.     

Music and driving game performance

This study investigated the effects of the nature of music and a concurrent task on measures of task performance and musical preference. Subjects completed 5 laps of a computer motor racing game whilst listening to either arousing or relatively unarousing music in either the presence or absence of a backward-counting task. Both these manipulations affected performance on the game with arousing music and backward-counting leading to slower lap times than relatively unarousing music and the absence of the backward-counting task. Backward-counting led to lower liking for the music than did the absence of this task. These results support the idea that music and the concurrent task competed for a limited processing resource. The results also indicated that liking for the music was positively related to task performance, and in conjunction these findings seem to suggest a direct link between music and the listening context.     

The effects of music and task difficulty on performance at a visual vigilance task

Forty subjects performed a visual vigilance task in music or noise and when the task was difficult or easy. Response measures taken were: correct detections, commission errors, detection latencies and d' values. For the difficult version of the task a significant increase in detection latencies was found which music prevented. Broadly similar findings were obtained for correct detections. The results are compared with other studies of detection latency and task difficulty and are discussed in terms of arousal.     

不同背景噪音干扰下的数字短时记忆研究

以三种类型(交通噪音、生活噪音、舒缓乐音)三种声级(40.7dBA、56.4dBA、73.3dBA)的环境噪音作为无关声音刺激,考察其对数字短时记忆广度和Sternberg任务的影响,发现:(1)背景噪音的不同对个体数字短时记忆广度影响没有显著差异;(2)背景噪音声级的不同对个体删除极端数值后正确反应的反应时及对“极错总比率”都有显著的影响;(3)对于删除极端数值后的正确反应来说,在不同背景噪音存在下,随着记忆集的增大,反应时仍然呈直线上升趋势。     

A performance analysis of In-Car Music engagement as an indication of driver distraction and risk

Drivers engage in a host of driving-unrelated tasks while on the road. They listen to music, sing-along, and accompany songs by pounding-out drum-kicks and syncopated rhythms on the steering wheel. However, there is controversy over in-cabin music: Does background music facilitate driver performance via increased arousal leading to more focused concentration, or cause distraction placing drivers at greater risk. In an effort to shed light on the debate, the current study evaluated music engagement by employing Music Performance Analyses with audio recordings from three simulated driving conditions. The results indicate that as the perceptual demands of the primary driving task increased, the secondary music activity was hampered, and subsequently sub-optimal vocal and percussive performances were demonstrated consisting of intonation errors, rhythmic inaccuracy, lack of synchrony, inconsistent and unstable temporal flow, neglect of text, and lyric replacement. The findings seem to point out that drivers allocate greater reserves to music than previously considered, and as drivers do not withdraw altogether from music engagement under high-demand driving conditions, driving may be under-resourced. Exploring active music engagement while driving might assist traffic safety researchers in decoding the effects of In-Car Music on driver behavior.     

Development of relational learning: Effects of instruction and delay of transfer

Preschool children were trained on a color relevant oddity problem by one of three methods: increased salience of the oddity relationship, instruction on the solution rule, or a combination of increased salience and rule instruction. The youngest Ss solved the training problem when the solution rule was provided but not under the salience procedure. The two older groups solved in all conditions and errors decreased with age. The generality of the solution was determined by performance on a form relevant transfer task. The youngest Ss made fewer errors on the transfer problem following rule instruction training than following training in the combined procedure. The intermediate age group made fewer errors when the transfer task was administered one week after training than one minute after training. The transfer problem was easily solved by the oldest Ss and performance was independent of training procedure and amount of delay. These results were interpreted as reflecting developmental differences in relational concept learning.     

The Influence of Contextual Factors on Afro-American and Euro-American Children's Performance: Effects of Movement Opportunity and Music

The present study sought to further establish that contextual factors informed by certain postulated cultural experiences could influence performance on a learning task. Towards this end, low income Afro-American and Euro-American children learned to pair pictures in an acquisition context that allowed for them to coordinate movement with music (High Movement Expressive [HME]) and in an acquisition context which allowed for little movement opportunity and no music (Low Movement Expressive [LME]). Children were subsequently tested for picture pair retention in a context where music was present or in a context where music was absent. The findings revealed that Afro-American children's tested performance was superior with the HME acquisition context, while Euro-American children's performance was superior with the LME context. In addition, music present at testing context seemed to have an independent enhancing effect only on Afro-American children's performance. The cultural and educational implications of these findings are discussed as are recommendations for future research.     

Can preference for background music mediate the irrelevant sound effect?

Research suggests that listening to background music prior to task performance increases cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, through the mechanism of increasing arousal and positive mood. However, music preference has not been explored with regard to a more common and realistic scenario of concurrent music and cognition, namely the ‘irrelevant sound effect’ (ISE). To examine this, serial recall was tested under quiet, liked and disliked music sound conditions as well as steady‐state (repetition of ‘3’) and changing‐state speech (random digits 1–9). Results revealed performance to be poorer for both music conditions and the changing‐state speech compared to quiet and steady‐state speech conditions. The lack of difference between both music conditions suggests that preference does not affect serial recall performance. These findings are discussed within the music and cognition and auditory distraction literatures. Copyright © 2010 JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining the relationship between skilled music training and attention

While many aspects of cognition have been investigated in relation to skilled music training, surprisingly little work has examined the connection between music training and attentional abilities. The present study investigated the performance of skilled musicians on cognitively demanding sustained attention tasks, measuring both temporal and visual discrimination over a prolonged duration. Participants with extensive formal music training were found to have superior performance on a temporal discrimination task, but not a visual discrimination task, compared to participants with no music training. In addition, no differences were found between groups in vigilance decrement in either type of task. Although no differences were evident in vigilance per se, the results indicate that performance in an attention-demanding temporal discrimination task was superior in individuals with extensive music training. We speculate that this basic cognitive ability may contribute to advantages that musicians show in other cognitive measures.     

Spatial Reversal as a Measure of Executive Functioning in Children With Autism

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the executive functioning performance of children with autism with chronological- and verbal-matched controls in a spatial-reversal task. Three groups of children participated in this experiment. One group was identified as having autism (7 boys), the 2nd group contained 7 typically developing children (6 boys, 1 girl) who were matched to the 1st group based on their verbal performance, and the 3rd group contained 7 typically functioning children (6 boys, 1 girl) matched to the 1st group based on chronological age. Each group was given a spatial-reversal task containing 2 problems. In the 1st problem, children selected a toy on a particular side in a pair. In the 2nd problem, the contingencies were reversed such that children were to choose the toy on the opposite side. Children with autism generally performed worse than comparison groups as indicated by their overall higher rate of errors. However, these results must be qualified by considering the performance for each problem: Errors for the children with autism were infrequent during the 1st problem but increased in the 2nd, whereas errors for comparison children showed the opposite pattern. When these results from the spatial-reversal task were intérpreted from the perspective of hypothesis-testing theory, the executive functioning deficiency of children with autism was found to involve the selection and testing of stereotypic response sets that were not likely to be revised or changed flexibly according to feedback from the environment or the demands of the task.     

Background music as noise abatement in open‐plan offices: A laboratory study on performance effects and subjective preferences

Continuous noise is played in many open‐plan offices to partially mask ambient sounds, in particular background speech. With this, the detrimental impact of background sounds on cognitive performance is intended to be reduced as well as subjectively perceived disturbance. Our experiments explored whether background music can achieve the same effects. Besides collecting subjective rating data, we tested cognitive performance using verbal serial recall. This is the standard task for exploring verbal short‐term memory, which is central to human information processing. Either staccato music, legato music or continuous noise was superimposed on office noise. In Experiment 1 (N = 30), only continuous noise reduced the detrimental impact of office noise significantly. Legato music did not qualify in this respect although it did not diminish cognitive performance when presented in isolation in Experiment 2 (N = 20). Subjective ratings in both experiments revealed that most participants would prefer legato music to continuous noise in office environments. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attention to errors and learning: Across-task and across-domain analysis of the postfailure reflectivity measure

The ratio between the mean postfailure and postsuccess latencies on a self-paced task (Postfailure Reflectivity) has been proposed as a measure of attention to errors, affecting learning across domains. This study was devised to test the generality of Postfailure Reflectivity (PFR). In Experiment 1, performance on two nonverbal, inference, and induction/deduction tasks was examined. Reading disabled subjects showed significantly less PFR than normally achieving subjects, and PFR correlated positively with the score in two nonverbal tasks, and across two testing times. In Experiment 2, PFR was significantly correlated with performance on two nonverbal tasks and one arithmetic task, and with measures of deep planning during interviews following the learning of a nonverbal inference task, as well as following motor and cognitive learning tasks. PFR also correlated with intentional learning, as measured on the Implicit Theories Interview. Jointly considered, these findings support the view that attention to errors plays a central role in learning, and that PFR is a good measure of attention to errors. It appears that Postfailure Reflectivity is a metacognitive skill which possesses adaptive, generalized, and trans-domain characteristics.     

Spatial reversal as a measure of executive functioning in children with autism

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the executive functioning performance of children with autism with chronological- and verbal-matched controls in a spatial-reversal task. Three groups of children participated in this experiment. One group was identified as having autism (7 boys), the 2nd group contained 7 typically developing children (6 boys, 1 girl) who were matched to the 1st group based on their verbal performance, and the 3rd group contained 7 typically functioning children (6 boys, 1 girl) matched to the 1st group based on chronological age. Each group was given a spatial-reversal task containing 2 problems. In the 1st problem, children selected a toy on a particular side in a pair. In the 2nd problem, the contingencies were reversed such that children were to choose the toy on the opposite side. Children with autism generally performed worse than comparison groups as indicated by their overall higher rate of errors. However, these results must be qualified by considering the performance for each problem: Errors for the children with autism were infrequent during the 1st problem but increased in the 2nd, whereas errors for comparison children showed the opposite pattern. When these results from the spatial-reversal task were interpreted from the perspective of hypothesis-testing theory, the executive functioning deficiency of children with autism was found to involve the selection and testing of stereotypic response sets that were not likely to be revised or changed flexibly according to feedback from the environment or the demands of the task.     

Error detection and posterror behavior in depressed undergraduates

This study examined the influence of depression on error-monitoring and behavioral compensation after errors, two important aspects of cognitive control. Undergraduates differing in self-reported depression levels completed a modified Stroop task while error-related scalp potentials were recorded. Behaviorally, participants with higher depression scores were disproportionately slower and less accurate after errors in a task condition that included negative emotional words. Physiological results indicated that the amplitudes of the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe), two indices of error detection, were not correlated with depression score. ERN amplitudes predicted behavioral slowdown after errors, but only among more depressed participants in the negative-word condition. Together, the results imply that depression is associated not with an error detection deficit, but rather with alterations in subsequent performance changes, once errors have been identified.     

Divided attention in music

Two models have been advanced to account for the apparent ease with which attention can be divided in music: a “divided attention” model postulates that listeners effectively manage to follow two or more melodic lines played simultaneously. According to a “figure‐ground model,” the harmonic coherence of Western polyphonies allows a listener to focus on one melody while staying aware of the other melody, which acts as a background. This figure‐ground processing compensates for the inability to divide attention. The present study was designed to further investigate these two models. Participants were required to detect melodic errors in two familiar nursery tunes played simultaneously an octave apart. The divided‐attention model predicted that this task would be easily performed by participants, irrespective of the key of the nursery tune. The figure‐ground model predicted better performance when the keys of the tunes were identical or closely related. None of these predictions was fully supported by the data, leading us to propose a new “integrative model” of listening to polyphonic music.     

MINI-CPT: A continuous performance test program for the Tandy PC-8 Pocket Computer

MINI-CPT programs the miniature PC-8 computer (2K RAM) to administer a continuous performance test. After training to criterion, MINI-CPT presents a randomized series of 360 stimuli at 1-sec intervals. Upon completion of the 6-min task, statistics including reaction time (RT) mean, standard deviation, and distribution; errors of omission and commission; a percent correct score adjusted for response bias; and RTs for each of the 90 targets are displayed or printed via a PC-3 printer. User options include selecting immediate RT feedback, limiting the task to 3 min, and designating the randomization seed to generate replicable stimulus sequences. MINI-CPT provides a portable, inexpensive measure of attention suitable for use in field research in attentional-deficit disorders, circadian rhythm disturbances due to shift work or jet lag, and, in neuropsychological rehabilitation, as a directed-attention training device with immediate feedback.     

Performance of Girls With ADHD and Comparison Girls On the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure: Evidence for Executive Processing Deficits

In spite of a multitude of scoring approaches, the ability of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF) to measure executive functions versus grapho-motor skill is still open to question. To clarify this issue, we examined the performance of an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of preadolescent girls (ADHD-Combined, n = 93; ADHD-Inattentive, n = 47; and comparison girls, n = 88) on the ROCF, scoring both immediate copy and delayed recall performance. Girls with ADHD performed the task following a stimulant medication washout. Dependent measures were the established Developmental Scoring System variables of Organization, Accuracy, and Style, plus an operationalized and extensively detailed scoring of errors, featuring an error proportion score (EPS). The major finding is that only EPS differentiated girls with ADHD from comparison girls (a) on both immediate and delayed performance and (b) with stringent statistical control of Performance IQ, fine motor speed, and performance on the Porteus Mazes (as well as comorbidities), with effect sizes in the medium range. Perseverative errors contributed significantly to EPS. Overall, error scores on the ROCF appear to tap planning, a key executive function, and are quite sensitive to deficits in this domain for girls with ADHD.