Reduced Memory Representations for Music

We address the problem of musical variation (identification of different musical sequences as variations) and its implications for mental representations of music. According to reductionist theories, listeners judge the structural importance of musical events while forming mental representations. These judgments may result from the production of reduced memory representations that retain only the musical gist. In a study of improvised music performance, pianists produced variations on melodies. Analyses of the musical events retained across variations provided support for the reductionist account of structural importance. A neural network trained to produce reduced memory representations for the same melodies represented structurally important events more efficiently than others. Agreement among the musicians' improvisations, the network model, and music-theoretic predictions suggest that perceived constancy across musical variation is a natural result of a reductionist mechanism for producing memory representations.     

Testing Schneider's ASA Theory

Dans une population de 344 cadres de Grande-Bretagne appartenant à 4 organisations, 5 fonctions et 3 niveaux de direction, il fut découvert que les cadres de diverses organisations diffèrent par la personnalité. Il en est de meme des cadres de différentes fonctions. Il n'y a pas d'effets interactifs avec le niveau. Ces résultats furent saisis pour appuyer certains traits du modèle d'attraction, de sélection et d'attrition de Schneider (1987).
In a sample of 344 UK managers from four organisations, carrying out five functions, and at three levels of management, it was found that managers from different organisations differed in personality. So, too, did managers carrying out different functions. There were no interactive effects with level. These results were taken to support certain features of Schneider's (1987) attraction, selection and attrition model.