Absolute pitch, besides the psychological and neurological interests it has, raises some conceptual difficulties that can teach us about the richness of our notion of musical tone and various aspects of its identification. It is argued that when AP is conceived under a slim notion of identifying the pitch of a crude sound, it is hardly meaningful and has no significance in music comprehension. The rich notion, which is the meaningful and important one, involves knowing the position (...) of a tone in a tone-space and its relations. This is presented as experiential: hearing and identifying tones under concepts and relations that are experienced rather than figured out or derived on the basis of crude identification of bare tones. Since many of these concepts and relations are musically meaningful, this rich notion of identification is thus connected to musical understanding and aesthetic appreciation of a musical work. It may also be claimed to be vital in passing between different sense modalities, and can explain various aspects of AP and puzzles connected with it. (shrink)

Wittgenstein was apparently looking for someone else. It was because he had not been successful that he had knocked at the Leavises’ door, to bide his time there before he looked again. On entering the house, he immediately peered through the window into the street. Yet after a moment he turned and said abruptly: “You’ve got a gramophone, I see—I don’t suppose you’ve anything worth playing.” And “Then,” so Leavis continues the description,with a marked change of tone, he exclaimed (...) “Ah!”: from the repository just at hand he pulled out the album of Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony and put the first record on the machine. A moment after the music began to sound he lifted the tone-arm, altered the speed, and lowered... (shrink)

In this study, Limburgian and Dutch 2,5- to 4-year-olds and adults took part in a word learning experiment. Following the procedure employed by Quam and Swingley (2010) and Singh et al. (2014), participants learned two novel word-object mappings. After training, word recognition was tested in correct pronunciation (CP) trials and mispronunciation (MP) trials featuring a pitch change. Since Limburgian is considered a restricted tone language, we expected that the pitch change would hinder word recognition in Limburgian, but (...) not in non-tonal Dutch listeners. Contrary to our expectations, both Limburgian and Dutch children appeared to be sensitive to pitch changes in newly learned words, indicated by a significant decrease in target fixation in MP trials compared to CP trials. Limburgian and Dutch adults showed very strong naming effects in both trial types. The results are discussed against the background of the influence of the native prosodic system. (shrink)

Fundamental frequency, perceived as pitch, is the first and arguably most salient auditory component humans are exposed to since the beginning of life. It carries multiple linguistic and paralinguistic functions in speech and communication. The mappings between these functions and ƒ0 features vary within a language and differ cross-linguistically. For instance, a rising pitch can be perceived as a question in English but a lexical tone in Mandarin. Such variations mean that infants must learn the specific mappings (...) based on their respective linguistic and social environments. To date, canonical theoretical frameworks and most empirical studies do not view or consider the multi-functionality of ƒ0, but typically focus on individual functions. More importantly, despite the eventual mastery of ƒ0 in communication, it is unclear how infants learn to decompose and recognize these overlapping functions carried by ƒ0. In this paper, we review the symbioses and synergies of the lexical, intonational, and emotional functions that can be carried by ƒ0 and are being acquired throughout infancy. On the basis of our review, we put forward the Learnability Hypothesis that infants decompose and acquire multiple ƒ0 functions through native/environmental experiences. Under this hypothesis, we propose representative cases such as the synergy scenario, where infants use visual cues to disambiguate and decompose the different ƒ0 functions. Further, viable ways to test the scenarios derived from this hypothesis are suggested across auditory and visual modalities. Discovering how infants learn to master the diverse functions carried by ƒ0 can increase our understanding of linguistic systems, auditory processing and communication functions. (shrink)

Terms for the pitch of tones, such as 'high-low' do not describe pitch and can interfere with our apprehending such data for what they are in their sensuous uniqueness. Very different alternatives such as 'narrow-broad' or French aigu-grave serve equally well. In listening to music the first requisite is the apprehension of 'uncategorized' tones, the words for them serving only as a way of marking the fact of their differences. This must lead us to reaffirm what was said (...) by Gorgias about what language can and cannot do in respect of such data. (shrink)

This is an essay on Kant's neglected late tract On a Recently Adopted Prominent Tone in Philosophy (RTP) and Derrida's oblique commentary on this work in his D'un ton apocalyptique adopté naguère en philosophie. The theme of the essay is metaphilosophical and considers issues concerning the nature of critical philosophy, fanaticism (Schwärmerei), and the use of religious tropes in philosophy. I am primarily interested in the ways in which RTP thematises the legitimacy of speaking in an exalted, quasi-religious (...) class='Hi'>tone apropos of the authority of Reason as a self-legitimising capacity in philosophical speech. An important additional reason for taking a closer look at this text is because the late Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) took a great interest in this work of Kant’s and, indeed, emphasised, rightly I think, that despite its prima facie rhetorically charged, polemical nature this work—which might at first be taken to be merely a lampoon—is anything but insignificant in Kant’s œuvre. Derrida’s On a Recently Adopted Apocalyptic Tone in Philosophy, originally published in 1983, is an oblique commentary on Kant’s RTP, and aims to expose to view the alleged hidden underpinnings of Kant’s polemic against exaltation or fanaticism (Schwärmerei) in philosophy. Derrida tries to show that Kant’s appeal for tonal moderation in philosophy, for a measured speech, which should rein in exalted modes of speech, is itself not neutral and rather fundamentally biased against an exalted, quasi-religious, manner of thought. It is evident that, as he himself notes early on in RTP, Kant is predisposed towards a more Aristotelian, academic kind of philosophy, which adopts a “proper” tone or pitch in philosophical debate, but Derrida claims that Kant himself raises his voice precisely in lampooning exalted thinkers. I am particularly interested in the extent to which Derrida’s critique manifests a fundamental misapprehension of the Kantian mode of moderating critique. By expounding this misapprehension, Kant’s own reasons for his philippic against religious or quasi-religious talk in philosophy are foregrounded, thus showing the nature of properly critical thought. At the same time, I shall show how Derrida underestimates the self-reflexivity, and hence properly critical, self-authorising mode of thinking, underlying his own oblique references to the adieu as a trope for quasi-transcendental intentionality towards the so-called ‘Other’. (shrink)

In tone languages, some case studies showed that the word-level tonal representation was closely related to the underlying metrical pattern. Based on different tonal patterns in prosodic units, the metrical structures could generally be divided into the left- and right-dominant types in Chinese dialects. Yet the cross-dialectal phonetic realizations (e.g., duration and pitch) between or within these two metrical structures were still unrevealed. The current study investigated the duration and pitch realizations of disyllabic prosodic words in Changsha (...) and Chengdu dialects (the left-dominant structure), and in Fuzhou and Xiamen dialects (the right-dominant structure). Results showed that not all the duration patterns across four Chinese dialects were sensitive to different metrical structures, indicating that the duration might not be the universal cue for metrical prominence in Chinese dialects. In terms of pitch realization across all the four Chinese dialects, level tones (sometimes falling tones) generally appeared in the metrically weak unit, while underlying pitch forms appeared in the metrically strong unit. Compared with duration, pitch might be more robust for prosodic realizations of metrical structures in Chinese dialects. Furthermore, there was an interaction between duration and pitch patterns in Chinese dialects, which could shed new light on the phenomenon of “metrical tone sandhi”. Meanwhile, this study also provides some references for the judgment of the metrical stress and prosodic realizations in other Chinese dialects. (shrink)

Speakers with autism spectrum disorder are found to exhibit atypical pitch patterns in speech production. However, little is known about the production of lexical tones as well as neutral tones by tone-language speakers with ASD. Thus, this study investigated the height and shape of tones produced by Mandarin-speaking children with ASD and their age-matched typically developing peers. A pronunciation experiment was conducted in which the participants were asked to produce reduplicated nouns. The findings from the acoustic analyses showed (...) that although ASD children generally produced both lexical tones and neutral tones with distinct tonal contours, there were significant differences between the ASD and TD groups for tone height and shape for T1/T1N, T3/T3N, and T4/T4N. However, we did not find any difference in T2/T2N. These data implied that the atypical acoustic pattern in the ASD group could be partially due to the suppression of the F0 range. Moreover, we found that ASD children tended to produce more errors for T2/T2N, T3/T3N than for T1/T1N, T4/T4N. The pattern of tone errors could be explained by the acquisition principle of pitch, similarities among different tones, and tone sandhi. We thus concluded that deficits in pitch processing could be responsible for the atypical tone pattern of ASD children, and speculated that the atypical tonal contours might also be due to imitation deficits. The present findings may eventually help enhance the comprehensive understanding of the representation of atypical pitch patterns in ASD across languages. (shrink)

I identify two components in the perception of musical pitches, which make pitch perception more like colour perception than it is usually taken to be. To back up this implausible claim I describe a programme whereby individuals can learn to identify the components in musical tones. I also claim that following this programme can affect one's pitch-recognition capacities.

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If automatic, does it also apply when the same pitch contours no longer sound like speech? Implicit Association Tests (IATs) provide an indirect measure of cross-modal association. In a series (...) of IAT studies, conducted with participants with three kinds of language backgrounds (Chinese-dominant bilinguals, Chinese balanced bilinguals, and English speakers with no Chinese experience) we find language-specific congruence effects for Mandarin lexical tones but not for matched sine-wave stimuli. That is, for linguistic stimuli, non-Chinese speakers show advantages for pitch-height congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy); no congruence effects were found for Chinese speakers. For non-linguistic stimuli, all participant groups showed advantages for pitch-height congruence. The present findings suggest that non-lexical tone congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy) is a basic congruence pattern, and the acquisition of a language with lexical tone can alter this perception. (shrink)

Although acoustic frequency is not a spatial property of physical objects, in common language, pitch, i.e., the psychological correlated of frequency, is often labeled spatially (i.e., “high in pitch” or “low in pitch”). Pitch-height is known to modulate (and interact with) the response of participants when they are asked to judge spatial properties of non-auditory stimuli (e.g., visual) in a variety of behavioral tasks. In the current study we investigated whether the modulatory action of pitch-height (...) extended to the haptic estimation of height of a virtual step. We implemented a HW/SW setup which is able to render virtual 3D objects (stair-steps) haptically through a PHANTOM device, and to provide real-time continuous auditory feedback depending on the user interaction with the object. The haptic exploration was associated with a sinusoidal tone whose pitch varied as a function of the interaction point’s height within (i) a narrower and (ii) a wider pitch range, or (iii) a random pitch variation acting as a control audio condition. Explorations were also performed with no sound (haptic only). Participants were instructed to explore the virtual step freely, and to communicate height estimation by opening their thumb and index finger to mimic the step riser height, or verbally by reporting the height in centimeters of the step riser. We analyzed the role of musical expertise by dividing participants into non musicians and musicians. Results showed no effects of musical pitch on high-realistic haptic feedback. Overall there is no difference between the two groups in the proposed multimodal conditions. Additionally, we observed a different haptic response distribution between musicians and non musicians when estimations of the auditory conditions are matched with estimations in the no sound condition. (shrink)

Vocal music and spoken language both have important roles in human communication, but it is unclear why these two different modes of vocal communication exist. Although similar, speech and song differ in certain design features. One interesting difference is in the pitch intonation contour, which consists of discrete tones in song, vs. gliding intonation contours in speech. Here, we investigated whether vocal phrases consisting of discrete pitches (song-like) or gliding pitches (speech-like) are remembered better, conducting three studies implementing auditory (...) same-different tasks at three levels of difficulty. We tested two hypotheses: that discrete pitch contours aid auditory memory, independent of musical experience (“song memory advantage hypothesis”), or that the higher everyday experience perceiving and producing speech make speech intonation easier to remember (“experience advantage hypothesis”). We used closely matched stimuli, controlling for rhythm and timbre, and we included a stimulus intermediate between song-like and speech-like pitch contours (with partially gliding and partially discrete pitches). We also assessed participants' musicality to evaluate experience-dependent effects. We found that song-like vocal phrases are remembered better than speech-like vocal phrases, and that intermediate vocal phrases evoked a similar advantage to song-like vocal phrases. Participants with more musical experience were better in remembering all three types of vocal phrases. The precise roles of absolute and relative pitch perception and the influence of top-down vs. bottom-up processing should be clarified in future studies. However, our results suggest that one potential reason for the emergence of discrete pitch–a feature that characterises music across cultures–might be that it enhances auditory memory. (shrink)

Music impacting on speech processing is vividly evidenced in most reports involving professional musicians, while the question of whether the facilitative effects of music are limited to experts or may extend to amateurs remains to be resolved. Previous research has suggested that analogous to language experience, musicianship also modulates lexical tone perception but the influence of amateur musical experience in adulthood is poorly understood. Furthermore, little is known about how acoustic information and phonological information of lexical tones are processed (...) by amateur musicians. This study aimed to provide neural evidence of cortical plasticity by examining categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese adults with amateur musical experience relative to the non-musician counterparts. Fifteen adult Chinese amateur musicians and an equal number of non-musicians participated in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. Their mismatch negativities (MMNs) to lexical tones from Mandarin Tone 2–Tone 4 continuum and non-speech tone analogs were measured. It was hypothesized that amateur musicians would exhibit different MMNs to their non-musician counterparts in processing two aspects of information in lexical tones. Results showed that the MMN mean amplitude evoked by within-category deviants was significantly larger for amateur musicians than non-musicians regardless of speech or non-speech condition. This implies the strengthened processing of acoustic information by adult amateur musicians without the need of focused attention, as the detection of subtle acoustic nuances of pitch was measurably improved. In addition, the MMN peak latency elicited by across-category deviants was significantly shorter than that by within-category deviants for both groups, indicative of the earlier processing of phonological information than acoustic information of lexical tones at the pre-attentive stage. The results mentioned above suggest that cortical plasticity can still be induced in adulthood, hence non-musicians should be defined more strictly than before. Besides, the current study enlarges the population demonstrating the beneficial effects of musical experience on perceptual and cognitive functions, namely, the effects of enhanced speech processing from music are not confined to a small group of experts but extend to a large population of amateurs. (shrink)

Auditory-guided vocal learning is a mechanism that operates both in humans and other animal species making us capable to imitate arbitrary sounds. Both auditory memories and auditory feedback interact to guide vocal learning. This may explain why it is easier for humans to imitate the pitch of a human voice than the pitch of a synthesized sound. In this study, we compared the effects of two different feedback modalities in learning pitch-matching abilities using a synthesized pure (...) class='Hi'>tone in 47 participants with no prior music experience. Participants were divided into three groups: a feedback group receiving real-time visual feedback of their pitch as well as knowledge of results; an equal-timbre group receiving additional auditory feedback of the target note with a similar timbre to the instrument being used ; and a control group practicing without any feedback or knowledge of results. An additional fourth group of violin experts performed the same task for comparative purposes. All groups were posteriorly evaluated in a transfer phase. Both experimental groups improved their intonation abilities with the synthesized sound after receiving feedback. Participants from the equal-timber group seemed as capable as the feedback group of producing the required pitch with the voice after listening to the human voice, but not with the violin. In addition, only participants receiving real-time visual feedback learned and retained in the transfer phase the mapping between the synthesized pitch and its correspondence with the produced vocal or violin pitch. It is suggested that both the effect of an objective external reward, together with the experience of exploring the pitch space with their instrument in an explicit manner, helped participants to understand how to control their pitch production, strengthening their schemas, and favoring retention. (shrink)

The question of what determines brain laterality for auditory cognitive processing is unresolved. Here, we demonstrate a swap of hemisphere dominance from right to left during semantic interpretation of Chinese lexical tones in native speakers using simultaneously recorded mismatch negativity response and behavioral reaction time during dichotic listening judgment. The mismatch negativity, which is a brain wave response and indexes auditory processing at an early stage, indicated right hemisphere dominance. In contrast, the behavioral reaction time, which reflects auditory processing at (...) a later stage, indicated a right ear listening advantage, or left hemisphere dominance. The observed swap of hemisphere dominance would not occur when the lexical tone was substituted with a meaningless pure tone. This swap reveals dependence of hemisphere labor division initially on acoustic and then on functional cues of auditory inputs in the processing from sound to meaning. (shrink)

The sensitive period for phonetic learning, evidenced by improved native speech processing and declined non-native speech processing, represents an early milestone in language acquisition. We examined the extent that sensory encoding of speech is altered by experience during this period by testing two hypotheses: early sensory encoding of non-native speech declines as infants gain native-language experience, and music intervention reverses this decline. We longitudinally measured the frequency-following response, a robust indicator of early sensory encoding along the auditory pathway, to a (...) Mandarin lexical tone in 7- and 11-months-old monolingual English-learning infants. Infants received either no intervention or music intervention randomly between FFR recordings. The language-experience group exhibited the expected decline in FFR pitch-tracking accuracy to the Mandarin tone, while the music-intervention group did not. Our results support both hypotheses and demonstrate that both language and music experiences alter infants’ speech encoding. (shrink)

Many perception and processing effects of the lexical status of tone have been found in behavioral, psycholinguistic, and neuroscientific research, often pitting varieties of tonal Chinese against non-tonal Germanic languages. While the linguistic and cognitive evidence for lexical tone is therefore beyond dispute, the word prosodic systems of many languages continue to escape the categorizations of typologists. One controversy concerns the existence of a typological class of “pitch accent languages,” another the underlying phonological nature of surface (...) class='Hi'>tone contrasts, which in some cases have been claimed to be metrical rather than tonal. We address the question whether the Sequence Recall Task, which has been shown to discriminate between languages with and without word stress, can distinguish languages with and without lexical tone. Using participants from non-tonal Indonesian, semi-tonal Swedish, and two varieties of tonal Mandarin, we ran SRTs with monosyllabic tonal contrasts to test the hypothesis that high performance in a tonal SRT indicates the lexical status of tone. An additional question concerned the extent to which accuracy scores depended on phonological and phonetic properties of a language’s tone system, like its complexity, the existence of an experimental contrast in a language’s phonology, and the phonetic salience of a contrast. The results suggest that a tonal SRT is not likely to discriminate between tonal and non-tonal languages within a typologically varied group, because of the effects of specific properties of their tone systems. Future research should therefore address the first hypothesis with participants from otherwise similar tonal and non-tonal varieties of the same language, where results from a tonal SRT may make a useful contribution to the typological debate on word prosody. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende constituir una breve reflexión crítica sobre los usos políticos de la violencia masculina sobre las mujeres, y de cómo, por tanto, una cuestión indudablemente fundamental, enfatizada por los movimientos de las mujeres y tratada por mucha literatura de inclinación feminista, puede ser utilizada dentro de un marco de referencia que se presta a legitimar políticas de seguridad, más que a facilitar el hallazgo de una respuesta adecuada al problema. Me ayudaré de ejemplos extraídos de lo que ocurre (...) en Italia, aunque es sabido que esta instrumentalización es común en muchos otros contextos culturales y políticos, y que es coherente con una modalidad de gobierno hoy hegemónica, el neoliberalismo. Mi tesis def iende que este uso ha sido facilitado por el colapso, tanto lingüístico como cultural, de toda la temática que tiene que ver con la relación asimétrica entre los sexos en el ámbito de la “violencia”. Este colapso, a su vez, puede interpretarse, desde mi punto de vista, como uno de los productos del avance de la hegemonía de la racionalidad política neoliberal durante los últimos treinta años. (shrink)

This author reviews some of the issues on which legal feminism has worked as well as the current status of the discussion, especially in Italian feminism. This is the case of family relationships, procreation and abortion, violence against women and security policies, prostitution, work in the labour market, the limits to citizenship and the confluence of feminism and the claims of cultural identities. With the assumption that legal feminism does not mean only “studies on women” but involves a crucial perspective (...) to discuss any subject, the author also reviews the relationship between feminism, law and gender. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se asume la identidad de América Latina desde una categoría andina, a saber, Chakana , como elemento posibilitador de la integración del subcontinente. El estudio se realiza en el marco de la filosofía intercultural, específicamente desde el autor Josef Estermann, quien ha mostrado un profundo interés por la cuestión del diálogo intercultural entre Andes y Occidente . Interrogantes como: ¿responde el concepto y realidad de Chakana a la exigencia identitaria latinoamericana?, ¿cómo debe concebirse?, ¿puede la identidad (...) de Chakana favorecer al proyecto de integración de América Latina? son las principales preocupaciones de la presente labor. El autor termina señalando algunos elementos de reflexión-acción en torno a la exigencia identitaria-integracionista. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Husserlian notion of “passive synthesis” can make a substantial contribution to the understanding of aesthetic experience. The argument is based on two empirical cases of qualitative interview material obtained from museum visitors and a world-renowned string quartet, which show that aesthetic experience contains an irreducible dimension of passive undergoing and surprise. Analyzing this material through the lens of passive syntheses helps explain these experiences, as well as the sense of subject–object fusion that occurs in some (...) of the most intense forms of aesthetic experience. These analyses are then contrasted with a potentially contradicting take on aesthetic experience from a recent trend in cognitive science, namely enactive aesthetics, which insists on the active subjective construction and sense-making of aesthetic experience. Finally we show that the two positions are in fact compatible. (shrink)

‘The importance of being experienced’ plays a central part in the ethical philosophy of Aristotle. An experienced person is a person who has acquired a coping skill, an appropriate attitude and a sense of situation. According to Aristotle the soul and the body are interdependent, which indicates a close connection between human activity, human cognition and human character. By insisting on the primacy of action, Aristotle changes the educational focal point from an epistemological discussion of knowledge to an ethical discussion (...) of practice. The paper discusses what Aristotle can offer contemporary education in relation to his understanding of experience. The frame of the discussion is organised according to the three notable elements that are contained in Aristotle’s notion of ‘the importance of being experienced’: a practice, an appropriate hexis or character and a sense of the situation. As a background for and framing of the discussion, the paper will outline some of the many variants as well as substantial differences of the notion of experience and experience-based learning and categorise them in three different understandings. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine Ralph Johnson’s concept of argumentation practice. He provides the following three desiderata for a critical practice: It is teleological, it is dialectical, and it is manifestly rational. I shall argue that Johnson’s preferred definition of practice – which is MacIntyre’s concept of practice as human activity with internal goods accessible through participation in that same activity – does not satisfy his desiderata.