Reading Activity Week #12 (Due Monday)

1a) What did you find interesting?
I thought the concept of melody was interesting. Melody is a sequence of notes or chords perceived as a single coherent structure. Melody is defined by its contour. The pattern of rises and declines in pitch-rather than by an exact sequence of sound frequencies. It’s not a sequence of specific sounds but shift every note of a melody by one octave and the resulting melody is the same. When you sing with other people possessing higher or lower voices, they sing the same melody at very different pitches. Even within a single octave, the same melody can be heard from different notes if the steps between notes stay the same. In addition to varying in pitch, notes and chords vary in duration. The average duration of a set notes in a melody defines the music’s tempo. Any melody can be played at either a fast or a slow tempo. But the relative durations within a sequence of notes are a critical part of the melodies themselves. If the notes of a given sequence are played with different relative durations, we will hear completely different melodies. This was interesting to me just because melody is something that’s always intrigued me. I love hearing choirs and bands different melodies, so reviewing this concept was something I found interesting and wanted to expand on.

2a) What did you find interesting?

I also found rhythm to be interesting. In addition to varying in speed, music varies in rhythm. Thaddeus Bolton conducted experiments in which he played a sequence of identical sounds perfectly spaced in time, they had no rhythm. His listeners reported that the sounds occurred in groups of two, three, or four. They reported hearing the first sound of a group as “accents,” or “stressed,” while the remaining sounds were unaccented, or unstressed. As these studies show, listeners are predisposed to grouping sounds into rhythmic patterns. Several qualities contribute to whether sounds will be heard as accented or unaccented. Sounds that are longer, louder, and higher in pitch all are more likely to be heard as leading their group. The timing relationship between one sound and the others in a sequence also helps determine accent. Listeners prefer sequences of notes to be fairly regular, and this tendency provides opportunities for composers to get creative with their beats. One way to be creative in deviating from a bland succession of regular beats is to introduce syncopation. Syncopation is any deviation from a regular rhythm. I thought this was interesting just because I’m a percussionist and have obviously always loved rhythm. So reviewing the concept and going over it was something that I gravitated towards.

3a) What did you find interesting?

Another thing I found interesting was phonation. Phonation is the process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs. To initiate speech sound, the diaphragm pushes air out of the lungs, through the trachea, and up to the larynx. At the larynx, air must pass through the two vocal folds, which are made up of muscle tissue that can be adjusted to vary how freely air passes through the opening between them. These adjustments are described as types of phonation. The rate at which vocal folds vibrate depends on their stiffness and mass. Vocal folds become stiffer and vibrate faster as their tension increases, creating sounds with higher pitch. By varying the tension of vocal folds, and the pressure of airflow from the lungs, individual talkers can vary the fundamental frequency of voiced sounds. The first harmonic corresponds to the actual rate of physical vibration of the vocal folds- the fundamental frequency. Talkers can make interesting modifications in the way their vocal fold vibrate. Really extraordinary part of producing speech sounds occurs above the larynx and vocal folds.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?

One thing I didn’t find interesting was articulation. Articulation is the act or manner of producing a speech sound using the vocal tract. The area above the larynx, the oral tract and nasal tract combined, is the vocal tract. We have the ability to change the shape of the vocal tract by manipulating the jaw, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, velum, and other vocal-tract structures. These manipulations are referred to as articulation. Changing the size and shape of the space through which sound passes increases and decreases energy at different frequencies. These are called resonance characteristics and the spectra of speech sounds are shaped by the way people configure their tracts as resonators. Peaks in the speech spectrum are referred to as formants, and formants are labeled by number, from lowest to highest frequency. These concentrations in energy occur at different frequencies, depending on the length of the vocal tract. I didn’t find this interesting just because it was hard for me to follow.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding Sensation / Perception?
I think understanding pitch will be most useful from understanding sensation and perception. Pitch is the psychological aspect of sound related mainly to perceived frequency. One of the most important characteristics of any acoustic signal is frequency. Brain structures for processing sounds are tonotopically organized to correspond to frequency. Musical pitch is one of the characteristics of musical notes, the sounds that constitute melodies. Octaves are the interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1. I think this is important to know because it is the underlying structure to this chapter. If you don’t know what pitch is, it would be very hard to understand the rest of the chapter.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

This chapter builds off of previous chapters because it continues off of sound and hearing. The previous two chapters talked about understanding hearing and the concepts and terms of the ear. This chapter builds off of that by talking about how we hear when it comes to music. This is important to know because music is part of our everyday life. How we hear music and understand music is different from any other sound.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?

I would like to learn more about coarticulation. Coarticulation is the phenomenon in speech whereby attributes of successive speech units overlap in articulatory of acoustic patterns. Articulators can move only so fast, and mass and inertia keep articulators from getting all the way to the position for the next consonant or vowel. Experienced talkers also adjust their production in anticipation of where articulators need to be next. In these ways, production of one speech sound overlaps production of the next. I want to learn more about this just because I’m a little confused on this topic and want to expand on it.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I’m a drummer so I could relate well to this chapter entirely. Tempo and rhythm are pretty much what make up drumming. So reading this chapter was pretty simple for me and easy to understand. While reading it I basically just thought of all the different ways drumming relates to it. I pretty much just thought of drumming and music while reading all of it.

Terms: Melody, notes, chords, coherent structure, pitch, contour, octave, tempo, relative durations, rhythm, speed, sounds, accents, stressed, unaccented, unstressed, patterns, pitch, relationship, listeners, sequence, tendency, beats, syncopation, deviation, phonation, vocal folds, vibrate, air, lungs, speech sound, diaphragm, trachea, larynx, muscle tissue, stiffness, mass, tension, airflow, pressure, fundamental frequency, harmonic, speech, articulation, oral tract, nasal tract, frequencies, resonators, formants, concentrations, psychological, tonotopically, correspond, musical notes, coarticulation, inertia, acoustic patterns.

1a) Making Music

1b) Unfortunately I have not done a ton of this since I graduated high school, but it is something that I love to do and find incredibly fascinating. The sequence of sounds that come across as a coherent structure is called a melody. The notes that form familiar songs to us feel like they are supposed to be together because they are a part of that particular song. The book used the example of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” These melodies come about through the variation in pitch, tone, and tempo. The tempo is the perceived speed to the notes in a song. Going with tempo is also the rhythm. Rhythms define a song’s “movement” for lack of a better term. The more accented and stressed notes give it a sense of pace that the tempo alone cannot give. Any deviation from this rhythm is called syncopation. Syncopation is described by the author to be a note that is accented when it is expected to be unaccented or not played at all. The most common music that uses this would be music like jazz, reggae, and ska. The ability to learn melodies occurs early on in life as one researcher deduced. Eight-month old infants were sat on their parents lap while they listened to three minutes of six simple melodies. After that, they listened to a new set of these sequences with the other sequences thrown in periodically. Because the infants responded to the original sequences, one can infer that the infants indeed learned something unique about the original melodies. This whole section was interesting because I love music. Understanding how it is perceived is something that I really find fascinating.

2a) Becoming a native listener

2b) Learning a new language is hard. This is nothing to new to anyone, especially if you have tried to learn a new language previously. The book did a really good job of explaining why this occurs. Sounds in one language can be incredibly important in distinguishing different words. For example, in the English language, the sounds that ‘r’ and ‘l’ make are important and used incredibly often. However in the Japanese language, these sounds are not as important and are not used as much. This is why when native Japanese speakers learn English, they have a difficult time with these particular sounds. Their brains are hardwired to see them as unimportant. I found this really fascinating because I love languages. I think different cultures are so incredibly interesting. I am currently learning sign language which does not involve listening but it does involve a whole different culture that I have never been a part of. It is really quite cool.

3a) Learning words

3b) My mother is an avid reader. She read to us from day one and encouraged us to learn new words. In this chapter we learned a lot about what it takes to create words because those are important in communicating, to be completely obvious. But I find it really fascinating that sounds that we put together as we are learning to speak English words (like the book example ‘d’-‘aw’-‘g’) mean nothing to an infant who is learning a word that translates as exactly the same object in a different language. Also, when we communicate in our native language even someone who is a fast talker can be pretty easily understood because we know what the sounds are supposed to mean, and we can anticipate what sounds come after another. When we hear someone speak in the same speed in a language that is not our native tongue it all gets really confusing and the words and sounds mean nothing to us.

4a) Articulation

4b) I had a really hard time finding something in this particular chapter that I did not like. I love language and I love music so, all in all, this chapter was pretty interesting to me. I chose articulation because it simply was the least interesting thing in this chapter. Getting into the parts of the body that help with articulation was uninteresting to me, but articulation is something that is incredibly important when it comes to speech.

5) I think the most useful topic from this chapter will be the topic on speech production. Knowing the different parts of how we produce speech will be incredibly important with understanding how we perceive speech.

6) This chapter builds off of chapter ten by giving us a specific way in how we perceive while hearing. Chapter ten explained how we perceive those sounds and how they make sense to us and chapter eleven gave us examples on what those sounds could mean in our brains.

7a) Language

7b) I would love to do more research on how language is perceived. It is something that has always been really interesting to me and I would love to know how our brains work when we hear our native language.

8) I thought a lot about my understanding of language in this chapter. I have found myself in church while taking notes switching between languages. When I’m taking notes and trying to follow along with my quick-speaking pastor, I have looked down on numerous occasions to see a Spanish word amongst all of the English notes that I have taken. It’s interesting how the brain works with different languages that you learn.

9) Key Terms: Sounds, melody, notes, pitch, tone, tempo, rhythm, syncopation, language, learn, communicating, speed, articulation, speech

1a) The first topic that I found interesting was the cultural differences between musical scales and intervals.
1b) The part of this topic that I found most interesting was about some Asian cultures. In places like China, Thailand, and Vietnam, the languages are tone languages. This means that variations in voice pitch, or fundamental frequency, to differentiate words. Some think that this affects the music in these countries. Due to the tonal quality of the languages, the music also shows higher variation between pitches than languages like English. Pitch changes in music for tonal language cultures tend to have more frequent and larger occurrences. I find this interesting because, as a former anthropology major, people and cultures are extremely interesting to me. I enjoy learning about the differences between cultures, as well as the causes of those differences.

2a) The next topic I found interesting was the range of sounds a typical human can make.
2b) After compiling the vast amount of languages that humans speak results in about 850 different speech sounds. This huge range of sounds is thanks to our vocal tract. This is the airway above our larynx. The vocal tract contains both the oral and nasal tracts, and these tracts are used for making speech. The reason that this is different from other animals is because the larynx is much further down our throat. This allows us to have greater vocal range than other animals. Even though a lower larynx gives greater risk for choking, and inability to breathe and eat at the same time, this trait has passed the test of evolution. I find this interesting because the fact that humans have such immense vocal range is really neat in and of itself. Knowing how that happens is even more interesting.

3a) The third topic I found interesting was learning words.
3b) I found this extremely interesting because learning words is how people develop language, and eventually how people can develop a sense of culture. As I mentioned before, I like learning about culture. I also think that it is really cool that infants can learn any language, even if it is not real, as long as they are young enough.

4a) The one thing I found least interesting was the spectrogram.
4b) I found this chapter to be incredibly interesting. So, a series of graphs used in sound analysis simply did not measure up. I would much rather learn about how sounds are made. Focusing on the sounds themselves does not sound nearly as interesting as how the human body works to create those sounds.

5) I think the most useful thing I learned for understanding sensation and perception is that speech and language is so important. As supported by the fact that our low-placed larynx persists despite certain risks, the continuation of speech ability is evolutionarily selected for. This demonstrates that our type of communication is beneficial to survival as a species. Knowing the importance of speech is useful because it gives us reason and purpose to study it. If something is important or useful, it gives more motivation to learn about it.

6) This chapter builds on other chapters in one big way. It builds on what we are learning about hearing. Instead of general hearing in the environment (the previous chapter), this chapter focuses on a specific sound in the environment. We learn here about music and speech, and how we are able to perceive it. Therefore, this chapter focuses in on an even more specialized area of hearing and perception of what we hear.

7a) I want to learn more about how speech is created.
7b) I want to learn more about this topic because I find it so interesting. I know that our lower larynx allows us more vocal capability, but the text did not elaborate on how this happened. I would very much like to explore this.

8) This made me think about my Intro to Psych class freshman year. I remember learning about phonemes and how babies have the ability to learn all that exist in the human range. It is only when we develop the phonemes of our own language that we lose this ability to learn the rest. This is why we sometimes have trouble telling the difference between sounds in other languages. We did not learn the difference, therefore it sounds incredibly similar. Reading the chapter reminded me of this concept, and in some cases elaborated on it.

Terms: Pitch; fundamental frequency; tonal; musical scales; intervals; range; larynx; vocal tract; oral tract; nasal tract; speech; spectrogram; graph; hearing; music; perception; phonemes; words; language; culture; evolution

1a. The first concept from chapter eleven that I found interesting was focused on the characteristics of people speaking their native language as opposed to a foreign second language learned after infancy. Researchers have found that after birth children filter out irrelevant acoustic differences important for foreign languages and focus primarily on the acoustic sounds that are relevant to the development of their parents language. This is evident in the inability of Japanese individuals to pronounce the letters "r" and "l" when learning the english language. Research has discovered that this issue with pronunciation is a result of differences in the vowels required for Japanese language. Because individuals from Japan do not require the pronunciation of "r's" and "l's" they lose the ability to make those speech sounds. After a speech sound is lost from a persons speech it is very difficult to gain it back.
b. I found this interesting because I have learned in a previous class that babies are born with all of the possible phonemes but lose the ability to pronounce all of them when they learn the language of their parents. As language begins to develop children lose the ability to pronounce irrelevant phonemes. Additionally, I found this interesting because it provides great research to support the idea that learning a second language has the highest success rate during childhood because children are still able to use a large amount of phonemes irrelevant to their original language. Adversely, adults lose the ability to access a large number of phonemes outside of what is relevant for their language and have a harder time learning a foreign language.
2a. The second topic from chapter eleven that I found interesting was the ability of infants to learn words. Researchers have found that infants are able to pick out words from stream of speech by developing experience with sounds that frequently occur together. As an example, babies typically hear the words "all gone" together and as a result they can anticipate that the two words will be spoken together and are better able to recognize them when they are spoken. This is the beginning of their language learning.
b. I found this interesting because it provides research into how babies learn language from their parents and the people around them. I can also conclude that it is important for parents to incorporate specific vocabulary into their conversation with their infants for them to learn language adequately.
3a. The third concept from chapter eleven that I found interesting was speech in the brain and specifically the details of the neuroanatomy. Researchers have found that hearing sound of any type activates the primary auditory cortex located near the temporal lobe. As a sound becomes more complex the primary auditory complex relies on areas of the brain adjacent to it for proper processing. These adjacent areas are referred to as the belt and parabelt areas and have been found to become active when an individual hears speech and music. The cortical processing of speech and music has been found to be balanced across both hemispheres. Additional research has found that as sounds become more complex they are processed in more anterior and ventral areas of the superior temporal cortex. Lastly, as speech sounds very clearly like an aspect of a language is is processed anteriorly in the left temporal lobe.
b. I found this section interesting because I am fascinated by neuroanatomy and parts of the brain that are active during specific processes. I enjoy learning about these areas of the brain because it also provides information on the effects that damage to these areas has. Lastly, neuroanatomy is extremely interesting because it provides important information as to what the brain actually does. The brain is awesome!
4ab. I found the section on classifying speech sounds to be dry reading because it simply does not interest me. I also found it to be a little hard to comprehend all of the information provided by the text.
5. I believe the section on speech in the brain will be most helpful for my understanding of sensation and perception because it specifies parts of the brain important for speech and understanding speech. Sensation and perception both occur in the brain and it is vitally important to recognize the structures involved in perceiving and sensing to understand this class and further topics.
6. This chapter builds on previous chapters because it addresses speech and music. The previous chapters discussed the physiology of the auditory system as well as speech in the environment. These topics built the foundation to relate speech to music. The current chapter incorporated brain structures important for speech that were previously covered in the chapters before. An understanding of the neuroanatomy was important for my understanding of music and speech areas of the brain.
7ab. I would like to learn more about the neuroanatomy of speech and the brain as well as the results of deficits in these areas. I think it would be very useful information to have and could provide treatment possibilities for individuals with damage to the temporal lobe.
8. I thought about the areas of the brain associated with speech as well as the effects that deficits in this area could cause. I wondered if there were case studies specifically addressing these deficits. Additionally, I'd be interested to know if there are treatment options available for individuals with speech deficits.
Terms: native language, vowels, acoustic sounds, learning words in infancy, stream of speech, neuroanatomy, primary auditory cortex, temporal lobe, belt area, parabelt area, cortical processing, anterior, ventral, superior temporal cortex

Melody development although brief and a very simple concept was the first section that I found interesting. The text refers to melody a psychological entity, very much in the same manner as is rhythm. There are no real rules as to what specifically makes a melody. A melody is a based upon our experience with the sequence of notes in question it is this that makes us perceive a coherence in the tune. The text continues that this is something that begins at relatively young age, some studies involving babies as young as 7-8 months old. The infants responded differently to melodies that were familiar but when one sequence was added to another sequence, both familiar the babies reacted differently to the new tune. In another study parents played a specific score of music and then two weeks later the infants were played this same score differently than to similar parts that were not in the original set. It made me think of how quickly I can scan channels on the radio when traveling. It takes only a very few beats to recognize the melody. It is so very basic but it plays a huge part in our music listening.
The second section that I thought was interesting was the section about becoming a native listener in the learning to listen topic. Each language has their own sounds and vowels and differences in pronunciation. This is based on how we have learned speech, the example of a native Spanish speaker saying that my dog “beet him” instead of bit is because the “ee” in Spanish is very similar to the English “ih”. Infants begin distinguishing the different acoustics before speech occurs. This helps to explain why it is more difficult for the language learner to adjust the older the age he begins.
Along the same lines was the topic about learning words. Understanding words in language is similar to melody recognition, there are no absolutes. Infants seem to learn based on repetition. The example dog in the text states that the children in the U.S. will begin to make this word meaningful while it will remain meaningless to children of other languages as their word for dog is very different. It is based on our own language as if we listen to another person speak in a completely different language it is difficult for us to perceive when words and sentences break.
Speech in the brain was my least favorite, once again because it gets rather complex in a subject that is interesting to me but hard for me to read. The section showed us the areas where neural activity in both left and right superior temporal lobes were activated when an individual was engaged in listening.
The section about native speakers and how we learn to articulate different parts of speech based on native language will be most helpful. This shows us how something that seems so abstract is based deeply in how our brains are learning.
This chapter is building on the way that we hear. It begins with the ear and continues into speech which plays a big role in hearing as we learned when discussing otitis media a couple of weeks ago.
I think I would like to study more on using multiple acoustic cues. I think this is interesting as it is based so heavily on experience yet seems to become almost hard wired into our being.
As I was reading about how we listen and especially native speakers I thought about how all of our senses work together. We have certain expectations on what things will sound like based on appearance. If we see a large dog we don’t expect a “yippy” bark. I thought of the very first time I heard Bobby Jindal the Govener of Louisiana speak. His parents moved to the U.S. when his mother was pregnant with him. His appearance is completely that of an Indian but he grew up in Baton Rouge. His speech is that of a southerner which totally contrasts with his appearance of Indian. I did a double take the first speech I heard from him because of my own past experiences with both the accent and his appearance.
Terms: melody development, psychological, tone, rhythm, listener, acoustics, speech, recognition, language, perceive, neural activity, superior temporal lobe, otitis media

1. The first thing I found interesting was how humans can produce so many different types of sound with their bodies. There are three components of human sound production are: respiration, phonation, and articulation. Respiration is the first step of how humans make sounds with their bodies. This is when the body starts speech by using the diaphragm to push air out of the lungs which is then transported up through the trachea and larynx. The larynx is where the second step happens, phonation. Phonation is where the air that was pushed through the larynx (aka the voice box) is adjusted to make specific vibrations. This happens because the vocal folds are located in the larynx, and the vocal folds are the muscles that stiffen (create tension), which create the vibrations our voice are made of. The last step of this process is articulation. Articulation is when the vocal tract (both the oral tract and the nasal tract) create specific sounds by changing the shape of the organs in the vocal tract, which is called manipulation. The organs in the vocal tract are the: jaw, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, and velum (aka soft pallet on roof of mouth). The result of this process is sounds that can be formed into words, both formants and lows. Formants are the higher frequency sounds that when combined with the lower frequency sounds create the resonance of that individual’s voice. I found this interesting because this is why there can be so many different sounds produced in the body, which is why there can be so many different languages in the world.
2. The second thing I found interesting was how the same sound can be perceived by two different people and each of those listeners might hear different sounds. This happens because of a combination of the listener’s cultural differences and experiences. A couple examples of sounds that could be impacted by these are music and accents (how people talk). One example the book talked about was how a person who grew up in a culture with an Asian Language might prefer a certain type of music due to the language they speak. Asian languages are called tonal languages because the way a word is pronounced (aka pitch) is very important as that could be only way to tell it apart from the meaning of another word from another. This is because two different words that is spelled the same way. A person who speaks this type of language is more likely to prefer a type of music called pentatonic music. Pentatonic music is based off of a 7 scale system. A western listener might find this type of language hard to understand and is more likely to prefer the heptatonic music of western cultures. I thought this was interesting because it explained why some accents can ‘just hit the ear wrong” as well as why I only hear my Iowa accent when I visit my family on the east coast/Texas.
3. The third thing I found interesting was how humans learn to listen when learning a language. This is explained by the role of experience. This ability to listen to and learn the difference between specific sounds even happens before an infant is born as it is well researched that infants can hear their mother’s voice in the womb. One study the book talked about how infant’s heart beats rose and fall according the vowels they were hearing at the time. Another study talked about how babies tend to like the language their mother spoke more than another language. These were just examples of how children are native listeners. I thought this was interesting because of the implications of saying that all people, of any age, are capable of becoming native learners for foreign languages if they are just well informed about the differences between the languages they know and the language they are trying to learn.
4. One thing I found boring was the part on classifying speech sounds. I thought it was boring because I had trouble hearing the differences in syllables the book used as examples as I always have trouble doing.
5. I think the concepts I talked about in 1-3 are most useful in understanding as they are the basis of human speech the perception of human speech.
6. This chapter talks about the parts of the vocal tract, which we learned about in chapter 10.
7. I think I would like to learn more about how to learn to become a native listener so I can learn a new language someday. Or I would like to research which languages are the hardest to learn from another language, and which ones are the easiest.
8. I thought about how the information in 2 related to me as I can understand an accent easily enough when I have enough experience with said accent.
9. respiration, phonation, and articulation, sound, sound production , diaphragm, air, lungs, trachea, larynx, voice box, adjusted, vibrations, vocal folds , tension, vocal tract , oral tract, nasal tract, manipulation, jaw, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, velum, soft pallet , Roof of mouth, higher frequency sounds , words, formants, lower frequency sounds , resonance,, voice, listeners, listener’s cultural differences, music, accents, Asian Language , language, speak, tonal languages , pronounced, pitch, pentatonic music, scale system, heptatonic music,, western cultures, Iowa accent , learn to listen , experience, native listeners., foreign languages , classifying speech sounds, syllables/

1. Coarticulation. This is interesting because it explains how we articulate specific words. The specific example in the book was the word moody. It tells us to say the word a few times and pay attention to our tongue as we say it. It was really interesting focussing and realizing how our mouths articulate different letters and sounds.
2.categorical perception. This is interesting because it makes me think more about music and recognizing the difference between two similar tones. Something i have never been particularly good at.
3. Learning words was probably was of th most interesting things. Specifically figure 11.22 saying that at 8 months old, babies can pick out words from a long sequence of words put together by the syllables used. "I think that is just incredible. i've heard of the my baby can read things but i never realized how or really believed in it.

4.I think the musical terms weren't very interesting to me because i'm not really someone who has ever gotten into music or singing. it's all things i've heard before in chorus as a kid, octaves chords pitch, etc. but nothings thats ever caught my fancy.

5 I think just in general the way we say words, thinking about how our mouths make the words we say, so i guess coarticulation

6. This sticks with the idea of pitch and sound but instead of how we hear it, this is about how we say it.

7. I would like to learn more about learning words, specifically at a young age like the example before. it absolutely fascinates me.

8. While reading i thought a lot about how we speak how we articulate words etc.

9. co articulation, categorical perception, tones, learning words, pitch, octives, chords,

The first thing I found interesting was syncopated auditory polyrhythms. This is when two different rhythms are overlapped and collide in interesting ways. For example, if one rhythm is based on 3 beats and the other on 4, the first accented sound for both rhythms will coincide only once every 12 beats. Across the 11 intervening beats, the two rhythms will be out of sync. I find this very interesting, because I am a drummer and am always pushing myself to add complexity to my playing. Other drummer friends and I have spent many hours coming up with the most complex syncopated auditory polyrhythms to test our and each other's playing ability.

Another thing I found interesting was phonation. Phonation is the process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs. To initiate speech sound, the diaphragm pushes air out of the lungs, through the trachea, and up to the larynx. At the larynx, air must pass through the two vocal folds, which are made up of muscle tissue that can be adjusted to vary how freely air passes through the opening between them. These adjustments are described as types of phonation. The rate at which vocal folds vibrate depends on their stiffness and mass. Vocal folds become stiffer and vibrate faster as their tension increases, creating sounds with higher pitch. By varying the tension of vocal folds, and the pressure of airflow from the lungs, individual talkers can vary the fundamental frequency of voiced sounds. The first harmonic corresponds to the actual rate of physical vibration of the vocal folds- the fundamental frequency. Talkers can make interesting modifications in the way their vocal fold vibrate. Really extraordinary part of producing speech sounds occurs above the larynx and vocal folds.

The third concept that I found interesting was the ability of infants to learn words. Researchers have found that infants are able to pick out words from stream of speech by developing experience with sounds that frequently occur together. As an example, babies typically hear the words "all gone" together and as a result they can anticipate that the two words will be spoken together and are better able to recognize them when they are spoken. This is the beginning of their language learning. I found this interesting because it provides research into how babies learn language from their parents and the people around them. I can also conclude that it is important for parents to incorporate specific vocabulary into their conversation with their infants for them to learn language adequately.

There honestly was not really anything in this chapter that I found to be uninteresting.

I think the concept that will help me most understand sensation and perception was the discussion on cultural differences. This is something that is often overlooked in many classes here at UNI, so it is important that it is brought up and talked about.

This chapter builds off of previous chapters because it continues off of sound and hearing. The previous two chapters talked about understanding hearing and the concepts and terms of the ear. This chapter builds off of that by talking about how we hear when it comes to music. This is important to know because music is part of our everyday life. How we hear music and understand music is different from any other sound.

I would like to do more research on cultural differences in music. This was a topic that was raised in my philosophy of art class discussions, but it did not really go anywhere. There was a debate as to whether it was a question of psychology or philosophy (mostly spearheaded by a close-minded and relatively ignorant professor), but no one had the expertise to answer any real questions about it.

While reading the chapter, I thought about my experience playing drums and the aforementioned philosophy discussion.

Terms: Syncopated Auditory Polyrhythms, Rhythm, Beat, Accented, Phonation, Vocal Folds, Vibrate, Lungs, Trachea, Larynx, Frequency, Harmonic, Experience,

(1ab) I found interesting the topic of music therapy. Music therapy has people sing, listen, dance, play and move to music to improve mental and physical health. This topic was very interesting to me because I use music a lot of times when I am dealing with a lot of stress like loads of homework and studying for school. Sometimes I don’t even mean to but overall listening to music that i like improves my mood and helps me put a smile on my face. Music is proven to have deep psychological effects. It provides me with positive emotions, reduced pain, alleviated stress, and it may even improve my resistance to disease. The book describes how we experience pleasurable music and we acquire a change in heart rate, muscle electrical activity, and respiration. Music is how some people make it through the day!

(2ab) The topic of making music by using a melody also interests me. A melody is a sequence of notes or chords perceived as a single coherent structure. Certain songs like “twinkle twinkle little star” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” are examples of melodies. This topic was interesting to me because no matter the shift of pitch, notes and chords, the song can be identified and recognized. Its amazing how you hear a song when you are a toddler and not hear it again until your late teens and recognize what song it is. These melodies are recognizable mostly due to tempo though. Tempo is the perceived speed of the presentation of sounds.

(3ab) I also found interesting the broad topic of speech. Speech production mainly interests me because among all the languages around the world, our body is able to produce over 850 different sounds. The sounds amongst everyone are closely related but none the same. The vocal tract is responsible for these sounds. The vocal tract is the airway above the larynx used for the production of speech. The vocal tract includes the oral tract and nasal tract. The unique struct of the vocal tract is different in every person. So you may have been able to experience the versatility go human sound production yourself.

(4ab) The topic of learning to listen and becoming a native listener didn’t interest me. This topic wasn’t interesting to me because my parents, just like yours I am sure, always told me “You have to listen!” But the book provides information on how learning a second language is important. Its important obviously because it makes you a better listener! Differentiating and analyzing in the second language that are similar to the first language is the most difficult. Learning a second language while you learn your first language is said to be easier.

(5) In terms of sensation and perception, I have finally come to understand that even though all functionalities of sensation and perception in humans like hearing with your ears, seeing depth perception, etc. all have the same operation. But everyones sensation and perception is formed and developed differently but they all produce a similar reaction in different ranges.

(6) In the previous chapter we discussed hearing in the environment, now we are understand how we interpret what we hear through music and speech perception. Each chapter starts broad and then the following chapters break it down piece by piece with more detail. Hearing in the environment is taken in by the ear by different vibrations and pressure in the ear. Sounds from music are related because the strings on instruments produce vibrations which make up complex sounds.

(7) I would like to learn more about music therapy. Does music really help you that much? I would love to learn more about this because if certain findings from studies related to music therapy produced results that could help find cures to certain diseases that would be great!

(8) I thought about how much a certain song can provide comfort to someone in remembrance of a close death in the family or a friend. I see certain signs, like a song coming on the radio, that he or she use to listen to and it provides me with comfort and puts a smile on my face like they are trying to talk to you.

(9) music, chord, melody, tempo, vocal tract

1a & b) What did you find interesting? Why? The first item in this chapter I thought was interesting was phonation. Phonation is the process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out the lungs. I found this interesting because the book does a good job discusssing the differences in between kids, male and females. I liked the analogy the book gives about guitar strings being like vocal folds. Just as the guitar strings get more tension, as do your vocal folds do and vibrate faster as the tension increases. I knew that men generally had deeper voices than women. I thought it was the transition at puberty when males tend to get more testosterone. I was not aware that was not aware that it was for increasing the mass to increase size of the vocal folds. I also thought the last sentence in that section was interesting; the extrordinary part of producing speech sounds occurs above the larynx and the vocal folds.

2a & b) What did you find interesting Why? The second item in this chapter I found interesting was at the very beginning. The whole discussion about music. I really liked reading about how music change change a person’s mood and emotions. Music has always been a big part of my life. Not in the way that I have learned it, because I don’t know really anything about it. But as far the how music can move a person or change their emotions or moods, absolutely spot on! I was interesting to read some some clinical psychologists use music as a part of their therapy. Those people can sing, listen, play and move to the music in efforts to improve mental and physical health. Music can be as powerful to alleviate stress and ease pain and may even improve people’s immune responses; that information can have a tremendous impact on the work I am going to be trained in (OTA). I have had many close friends and siblings pass away in the last 10 years of my life, and music has also helped me get through.

3a & b) What did you find interesting Why? The second item in this I found interesting was an infants ability to learn words. Research has been done, and found that infants are able to pick out words from speech by developing experience with sounds that frequently occur together. For example, babies typically hear the words "all done" together and as a result they can anticipate that the two words will be spoken together. These help them be better to recognize them when they are spoken. This is the beginning of their language learning. I found this particular section of the chapter interesting because ever since my boys were very young, my wife and I never really talked to them in baby talk. We had always talked normal with them, and now doctors make comments as to say they have an extremely good vocabulary for how old they are.

4a & b) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why? One of the most uninteresting parts of this chapter was classifying speech sounds. I thought it was complicated to read it in the book. I had trouble differentiating the differences in syllables the book used as examples. I think this is one part of the chapter that has to be covered in a lecture type of setting.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding Sensation / Perception? I believe that speech perception would be the most item to learn for our sensation and perception course. Speech perception is very important because it is a part of the survival advantage that has evolved into a necessary role in human life, it also distinguishes humans from other animals . A videotape shows a person repeating the sound “gah,” while an audio track plays the sound “bah,” and the subject hears the sound “dah.”. Without speech perception and processing, we will not be where we are today, and technology we know now may even cease to exist without oral communication.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? This chapter builds on previous chapters by building on what we are learning about hearing. This chapter focuses on a specific sound in our environment. The previous chapter we learned more of general hearing in the environment. We learn here about music and speech, and how we are able to perceive it.

7a & b) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why? I would like learn more about how music is studied from the brain. I would like to know what types of research is out there and what has been done to determine what areas of the brain are responding to different tones, pitches, rhythm’s, frequency, etc. I would like to know more about the clinical trials used in offices where and what kinds of music has the best “healing” factors.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? While reading this chapter I thought a lot about the music that I listen to. I find it interesting that when I am happy I listen to fast rock music but when I am sad I listen to more depressing and grunge type music. My music library is primarily rock, so I am interested to find out what different types of music do for different people.

TERMS: phonation, vocal folds, speech sounds, larynx, testosterone, frequency, tones, rhythms, perception, sensation, neurological, music therapy

I like learning about the anatomy of the throat, and how sound is created by the construction of the larynx. When air is passed from the lungs and diaphragm to the larynx, the vocal folds (muscle tissue) control how air is passed through the opening. The rate at which air is passed depends on size and degree of rigidity in the vocal folds, a process known as phonation. Obviously, this varies amongst people, which explains why different people have different pitch and timbre in their voice. Additionally, we can vary how much air is passed, further manipulating the sound emitted by the larynx. We can also vary the shape of other pieces of the vocal tract. I enjoyed learning about this because it’s kind of weird to think about air turning into sound, and that we have a very large amount of control over how the sound vibrates the vocal folds.
I found the portion of the text regarding language to be very interesting as well. Humans have the ability to produce a wide variety of sounds, however at a very early age our native language begins to limit our ability to reproduce foreign sounds we hear because we do not recognize them in our native language. This is particularly interesting because learning a second language is extremely difficult for many reasons, but one key obstacle is the perceived inability to recreate some foreign sounds. Our native language limits our vocal range from an early age, therefore limiting our ability to imitate the local dialog where certain unfamiliar sounds are used.

I really enjoyed reading about music and its psychological impact in this chapter. As a lifelong musician and music lover, I think it is really interesting to study how music can be engineered to produce a desired psychological reaction. We can take this one step further by using it as a tool to manipulate people. Perhaps less narcissistically, we can take advantage of its impact on mood, emotion, motivation, and perhaps as a pain reliever or disease resistance. For my non-musician classmates, they can recognize how music is used in a movie to manipulate the viewer’s feelings about the scene or events taking place in the movie. Classic examples of this are the movie soundtrack themes from Star Wars, Jaws, and Titanic.

I found it kind of boring to learn about the mechanics of music in this chapter, such as tone, rhythm and syncopation. As a lifelong musician, I’m pretty familiar with the basics of music theory. Similar to many other parts of this textbook, I wish the authors had focused more on psychological research pertaining to their concepts rather than basic factual information.

As the only animal capable of oral communication, we have the evolutionary advantage to be able to communicate with one another. It goes without saying then, that sound, hearing and voice are crucial to our lifestyle and perhaps our existence.

This chapter connects with the previous one in that we may imagine air passed through the larynx, causing the vocal folds to vibrate, is the mechanical part of a sound wave. At this point, the degree and rate at which air is passed controls the rate at which the vocal folds vibrate. Next, sound waves are produced. Because we may control the amount and rate of air passed through the opening in the vocal folds, and we can control various vocal tract structures, we have an extremely wide range of sounds we can produce.

I’d like to learn more about the psychology of music, particularly known effects on mood and emotion.

While reading through the chapter, I was mostly thinking of my background in music. Additionally, I also thought about my experience learning Spanish and the struggle I faced (among others) to reproduce sounds that are not used in English.

Terms: Larynx, diaphragm, vocal folds, language, music’s psychological effects, vocal tract,

1a) What did you find interesting?
This chapter overall was yet one of the best chapters in this book, what caught my attention first and formal is Octave. Octave is the interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
i thought this was very interesting because i have friends who actually are DJ's and mix and match beats together so they sound good together, and i know a little bit about it before i read the chapter.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Another thing i found interesting too was PITCH. pitch is the psychological aspect of sound related mainly to perceived frequency.

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
i found this interesting because when i was little, i used to be in choir, this choir was actually in my native of tongue,(my first language isn't English) as i sing songs in my native of tongue, i can't use the same pitch as i do when singing in English, i would actually have to switch up the my pitch depending on which language i was singing in, and i thought that was something that was very interesting,

3a) What did you find interesting?
The third thing i thought was Syncopation which is any deviation from regular rhythm.

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
as i mention earlier, i have friends/cousins who are into music, who i am around very often and they use all kinds of mixing to make their music stand out, to make sure that people know that they're great composers, they do it so they are distinctive from others and so when people hear something that they've put out, they know who's from.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? i think this chapter was actually great, the only thing that i didn't find interesting enough for me to learn more about was Formant, which is the resonance of the vocal tract, formants are specified by their center frequency and are denoted by integers that increase with relative frequency.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
it was interesting, it just wasn't interesting enough for me to learn more about it, and i think that has something to do with the way it was presented, it there were better explanation or examples of what is thoroughly then i think i would've had a better understanding of it and would've found it more interesting.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding Sensation / Perception?
i think mostly what i learned in this chapter is that different cultures have different ways of perceiving sounds especially when it comes to music, to some culture, like the olden american culture, soft slow country tones were very in and were likely accepted and understood by the society then, but because we've evolved and diversity occurred in the past decades, our choices in music evolved too, we have more choices and different cultures here in the united states have different taste in music and different understanding of what music is to them, they perceive it differently. i think this chapter would must likely be useful to someone who's into making music, mixing tracks or writing songs, knowing these kind of input about music would be a great thing for them so they can go ahead and use that to their own advantage and have a different sound than anyone that was ever before them or anyone that's going to be after them as well.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
the last chapter mainly focused on the timing and the intensity difference across the two ears, the perception of auditory distance, the many natural sounds, including the music instruments. this chapter mainly focus on the pitch differences of the sounds, the tone tightness of music, how the melodies have different meaning and such. they build on to each other because the other chapter is about timing and the intensity frequencies, and this one talks about the melodies and the pitchiness of what have already been received by the auditory system. so basically this chapter is saying or doing what happens after you've received the sounds.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
i mainly would like to learn more about psychology of music in general.

7b) Why?
i want to learn more about it because i one day hope to be a clinical psychologist and i want to know if there are ways to reach patients through music, how effective it can be and learning the downsides of it if there is anyone.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about)
the ideas that related to what i was reading were very many, i learned that i didn't sound the same in English than i did in my native of language because our vocal tracts are different, we have different melodies and different rhymes, so when i sing in my language, i need more of the high pitch melody, but in English, i easily can be at the medium melodies, where i don't sing too high or too low, it's right in the middle, another thing is that i think people who are aspiring musicians should read this chapter of the book and get ideas from there and see how they can improve their ideas on making music.

TERMS: Vocal Tact, Auditory system, Melody, Rhythm, Pitch, Octave, Tone height, Syncopation, Formant, Psychology of music.