Interested in a PhD fellowship in Amsterdam?

The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) currently has a PhD fellowship available at the Faculty of Humanities starting on 1 September 2013. Applications are now invited from excellent candidates wishing to conduct research in an area in which either the Logic and Language group or the Language and Computation group at ILLC are active, such as the computational modeling of human information processing, especially natural language and music (LaCo) and/or foundational issues in mathematics and computer science (LoCo). For more information, see here. Deadline for applications is 14 January 2013.

Perfect Pitch: Is this for real?

Absolute Pitch (AP) or Perfect Pitch, as some prefer to call it, is common throughout the animal world, and dogs are no exception (Levitin & Rogers, 2005).*

However, the demonstration below is almost too good to be true. Is the dog like Clever Hans, picking up unconscious cuing, or is he indeed listening and converting the sounding pitches to key presses? 

My prediction: the dog primarily watches the eyes and other body movements of the trainer, and does not really listen. A curtain between the owner and the dog would confirm this.

Update Summer 2013: See below for a composition by Brechtje van Dijk broadcasted by Vrije Geluiden in May 2013, with the same two dogs. Look closely: they look carefully, but do they listen?

* N.B. Relative pitch is far more special, see earlier blogs.

Levitin, D., & Rogers, S. (2005). Absolute pitch: perception, coding, and controversies Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9 (1), 26-33 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.007

Can rhesus monkeys detect the beat in music?

Beat induction, the ability to pick up regularity – the beat – from a varying rhythm, is not an ability that rhesus monkeys possess. These are the findings of researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and our group in Amsterdam, which are published today in PLOS ONE.

It seems a trivial skill: children that clap along with a song, musicians that tap their foot to the music, or a stage full of line dancers that dance in synchrony. And in way, it is indeed trivial that most people can easily pick up a regular pulse from the music or judge whether the music speeds up or slows down. However, the realisation that perceiving this regularity in music allows us to dance and make music together makes it less trivial a phenomenon.

Previous research showed that not only adult humans, but also newborn babies can detect the beat in music. This proved that beat induction is congenital and can therefore not be learnt. In their experiments with rhesus monkeys, the researchers used the same stimuli and experimental paradigms from previous research conducted on humans and babies. They measured electrical brain signals using electrodes while the participants were listening.

These research results are in line with the vocal learning hypothesis, which suggests that only species who can mimic sounds share the ability of beat induction. These species include several bird and mammal species, although the ability to mimic sounds is only weakly developed, or missing entirely, in nonhuman primates.

In addition, the results support the dissociation hypothesis, which claims that there is a dissociation between rhythm perception and beat perception. This new research suggests that humans share rhythm perception (or duration-based timing) with other primates, while beat induction (or beat-based timing) is only present in specific species (including humans and a selected group of bird species), arguably as a result of convergent evolution.


Honing, H., Merchant, H., Háden, G., Prado, L., & Bartolo, R. (2012). Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) Detect Rhythmic Groups in Music, but Not the Beat PLoS ONE, 7 (12) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051369

Hebben apen maatgevoel? (Deel 2) [Dutch]

Fragment uit 'Op zoek naar wat ons muzikale dieren maakt':

"Leipzig, 15 juli 2011. Op het Max Planck Instituut in Leipzig woon ik de internationale Ritme, Perceptie en Productie Workshop (RPPW) bij. Het is een relatief kleine, tweejaarlijkse bijeenkomst waar zo’n dertig onderzoekers uit verschillende disciplines bij elkaar komen om het over ritme en verschillende ritmische activiteiten te hebben, zoals roeien, golfen, lopen, spreken en muziek maken. Het is voor mij een bijzondere workshop. Ik bezocht hem als student voor het eerst in 1988, en de onderzoekers die ik daar ontmoette (o.a. Christopher Longuet-Higgins en Eric Clarke) maakten destijds een onuitwisbare indruk op me. Door hun passie en fascinerende onderzoek wist ik dat ik ook de wetenschap in wilde. Sindsdien heb ik nagenoeg alle RPPW bijeenkomsten bijgewoond.

Aan het conferentiediner zit ik naast Hugo Merchant, een energieke Mexicaan die de dag ervoor een lezing gaf over zijn recente onderzoek naar de representatie van tijd en ritme in de hersenen. Een geavanceerd verhaal met verrassende uitkomsten: in de hersenen blijken verschillende soorten timers traceerbaar te zijn. De hersenen van resusaapjes wel te verstaan, die in dit onderzoek als model dienen voor de hersenen van mensen. Hugo liet zien dat bij resusaapjes specifieke hersencellen actief zijn bij het aftellen totdat er iets moet gebeuren en bij cellen die de verstreken tijd meten nadat er iets is gebeurd.

Gedurende de avond praten we uitgebreid over de interpretatie en allerhande consequenties van de resultaten, zoals het schatten van tijd, het idee van een mentale klok (centraal dan wel gedistribueerd over de hersenen) en het mogelijke verschil tussen interval-gebaseerde timing (het herkennen van ritmes) en beat-gebaseerde timing (het herkennen van regelmaat).

Op een gegeven moment vraag ik Hugo op de man af: denk je dat het mogelijk is om bij resusaapjes een EEG te meten? That’s an empirical question, antwoordt hij uitdagend. En nadat we er nog wat langer over hebben gepraat, zegt hij: Let’s do it!"

A.s. zondag, in de uitzending van Vpro's Vrije Geluiden, meer over het onderzoek naar maatgevoel bij resusaapjes.

Do music and language share the same resources?

The interest in the relationship between music and language is a long-standing one. While Lerdahl & Jackendoff in their seminal book on the generative theory of tonal music built mostly on insights of metrical phonology of the time, more recent studies draw attention to the parallels with current minimalist syntactic theory rather than phonology. However, there are compelling reasons to consider music and language as two distinct cognitive systems. Recent findings in the neuroscience of music suggest that music is likely a cognitively unique and evolutionary distinct faculty (e.g., Peretz & Colheart 2003). This is referred to as the modularity-hypothesis.

This position can be contrasted with the resource-sharing hypothesis that suggests music and language share processing mechanisms, especially those of a syntactic nature, and that they are just distinct in terms of the lexicon used (Patel 2003). For this hypothesis there is now quite some evidence (see, e.g., Slevc et al., 2009). That study showed enhanced syntactic garden path effects when the sentences were paired with syntactically unexpected chords, whereas the musical manipulation had no reliable effect on the processing of semantic violations.

However, last week a new study was published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (Perruchet & Poulin-Charronnat, 2012) that not only replicated the results of the former study, but also tested semantic garden paths, with – surprisingly – similar effects. The researchers suggest that the mechanism that might in fact underpin these interactions is the ‘garden path configuration’, rather than the implication of an alleged syntactic module (as is suggested by the resource-sharing hypothesis). It might well be that a different amount of attentional resources is recruited to process the linguistic manipulations and as such modulating the resources left available for the processing of music.

 Perruchet P, & Poulin-Charronnat B (2012). Challenging prior evidence for a shared syntactic processor for language and music. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review PMID: 23180417

Peretz, I., & Coltheart, M. (2003). Modularity of music processing Nature Neuroscience, 6 (7), 688-691 DOI: 10.1038/nn1083

Patel, A. (2003). Language, music, syntax and the brain Nature Neuroscience, 6 (7), 674-681 DOI: 10.1038/nn1082
 

Hebben apen maatgevoel? [Dutch]

Elf maanden geleden werd de documentaire De man zonder ritme uitgezonden door het wetenschapsprogramma Labyrint van de VPRO / NTR:



Over enkele weken zal over het onderzoek, dat in de documentaire aan de orde kwam, een boekje verschijnen dat de zoektocht naar ritme- en maatgevoel bij mensen en apen beschrijft. Het essay, geschreven n.a.v. de 12e Van Foreest Publiekslezing in Alkmaar, beschrijft een recentelijk ingezette zoektocht over de vraag wat ons muzikale dieren maakt. Wat is er te zeggen over de oorsprong van muziek en muzikaliteit vanuit een biologisch en evolutionair perspectief? Hoe is muziek ontstaan? Is muziek uniek voor mensen, zoals taal dat lijkt te zijn? En zo niet, welke muzikale vaardigheden delen we dan met andere primaten?

Daarnaast verschijnt er binnenkort een gerelateerd wetenschappelijk artikel in PLoS ONE. De uitkomst moet nog even geheim gehouden worden (van PLoS ONE), maar ik kan wel zeggen dat wat ik, ten tijde van de opnames, dacht dat de meest waarschijnlijke uitkomst zou zijn, uiteindelijk het minst waarschijnlijk blijkt.

Honing, H. (2012, te verschijnen). Op zoek naar wat ons muzikale dieren maakt. Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers.

What's new in Music Cognition and Cognitive Science?

In the latest issue of Topics in Cognitive Science (edited by Martin Rohrmeier and Patrick Rebuschat) Marcus Pearce and Martin Rohrmeier write in the introduction:

"Why should music be of interest to cognitive scientists, and what role does it play in human cognition? We review three factors that make music an important topic for cognitive scientific research. First, music is a universal human trait fulfilling crucial roles in everyday life. Second, music has an important part to play in ontogenetic development and human evolution. Third, appreciating and producing music simultaneously engage many complex perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes, rendering music an ideal object for studying the mind. We propose an integrated status for music cognition in the Cognitive Sciences and conclude by reviewing challenges and big questions in the field and the way in which these reflect recent developments."

Pearce M, & Rohrmeier M (2012). Music cognition and the cognitive sciences. Topics in cognitive science, 4 (4), 468-84 PMID: 23060125

Interested in a PhD or Postdoc position?

As of today, Leiden University, University of Amsterdam, and the Meertens Institute are looking for several PhD and Postdoc candidates for an ambitious research project starting February 1, 2013.

(See links below on those related to music cognition.)

In various domains of cognitive science, a new paradigm holds that humans and non-human animals are born with a small set of hard-wired cognitive abilities that are task-specific, language-independent, and non-species-specific. These core knowledge systems are innate cognitive skills that have the capacity for building mental representations of objects, persons, spatial relationships, numerosity, and social interaction. In addition to core knowledge systems, humans possess species-specific, uniquely human abilities such as language and music.

The ‘core knowledge’ paradigm challenges scholars in the humanities to ask the question how nurture and culture build on nature. This project examines the way in which innate, non specifically human, core knowledge systems for object representation, number, and geometry constrain cultural expressions in music, language, and the visual arts. In this research program, four domains of the humanities will be investigated from the point of view of core knowledge:

Subproject 1:  Music Cognition        
PhD & Postdoc, teamleader: Prof.dr H. Honing

Subproject 2:  Language and Number              
PhD & Postdoc, teamleader: Prof.dr S. Barbiers

Subproject 3:  Visual Arts and Geometry
PhD & Postdoc, teamleaders: Prof.dr.ir M. Delbeke & Prof.dr.ir C. van Eck

Subproject 4:  Poetry, Rhythm, and Meter
PhD & Postdoc, teamleader: Prof.dr M. van Oostendorp

Deadline for applications: 23 November 2012.

For more information see research proposal.

See also related entries. 

A new vocal learner found?

'Singing' male mouse.

In a recent study by Timothy Holy and Zhongsheng Guo (Washington University) it was suggested that male mice produce vocalizations that are songlike, in the sense that they have a melodic structure, sequential and repetitive use of ‘syllables’ (as opposed to what can be called ‘calls’) that are combined in a non-random fashion with repeated motifs. And all this in the ultrasonic domain.

Example of a male adult mouse song (from Arriaga et al, 2012).

This discovery opened the question of whether mice share any behavioral and neural mechanisms for song production and learning with the set of rare vocal learning species, which includes three groups of birds (songbirds, parrots, hummingbirds) and several groups of mammals (humans, cetaceans [dolphins and whales], bats, elephants, and pinnipeds [sea lions and seals]).

In a study that appeared in PLoS ONE two days ago, co-authored by Gustavo Arriaga, Eric Zhou and Erich Jarvis (Duke University), it was shown that a motor cortex region in mice is active during singing, and that it projects directly to brainstem vocal motor neurons that is necessary for keeping song more stereotyped and on pitch.

The Jarvis research team also discovered that the mice depend on auditory feedback to maintain some ultrasonic song features, and that sub-strains with differences in their songs can match each other’s pitch when cross-housed under competitive social conditions.

It was concluded that male mice have some limited vocal modification abilities with at least some neuroanatomical features thought to be unique to humans and song-learning birds. In short: vocal learning seems not so much a species-specific characteristic, present in three groups of birds and several groups of mammals, but more likely to be a continuum.

Holy TE, & Guo Z (2005). Ultrasonic songs of male mice. PLoS biology, 3 (12) PMID: 16248680

Arriaga, G., Zhou, E. P., & Jarvis, E. D. (2012). Of Mice, Birds, and Men: The Mouse Ultrasonic Song-system Has Some Features SImilar to Humans and Song-Learning Birds PLoS ONE, 7 (10) : 10.1371/journal.pone.0046610

Is birdsong music?

Nightingale wrens (by John G. Keulemans)

Many studies on the origins of music concern the question of what defines music. Can birdsong, the song structure of humpback whales, a Thai elephant orchestra, or the interlocking duets of Gibbons be considered music? In trying to answer this question, it is important to separate the notions of ‘music’ and ‘musicality’, with musicality being defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by our cognitive system, and music as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality.

However, it is still a challenge to demarcate precisely what makes up this trait we call musicality. What are the cognitive mechanisms that are essential to perceive, make and appreciate music? Only when we have identified these fundamental mechanisms are we in a position to see how these might have evolved. In other words, the study of the evolution of music cognition is conditional on a characterization of the basic mechanisms that make up musicality.

Other studies are concerned with thinking about the question what we share with other animals in terms of musicality. And indeed, no matter how we would like it to be different, we are repeatedly reminded that we have more similarities to nonhuman animals than differences. However, we must be careful in calling birdsong or a chimpanzee’s drumming on an empty barrel, music. We make this mistake more often. We, the human listeners, perceive the sounds made by songbirds, whales, or chimpanzees as music. Whether these other animals also do that is unclear. And that makes a world of difference.

A few weeks ago an interesting study appeared in Animal Behavior on the often used example of the song of a nightingale that can be considered to be impressively musical. In that study ecologist Marcelo Araya-Salas (New Mexico State University in Las Cruces) shows that the resemblance between a nightingale wren's song and music is nothing more than a coincidence. Out of the 243 comparisons Araya-Salas made between nightingale wrens' songs and musical scales, only six matched harmonic intervals. Despite the beauty of birdsong, it’s again an example that when we call something music we’re projecting our own biases. Nothing wrong with that at all, but good to realize.

 Araya-Salas, M. (2012). Is birdsong music? Evaluating harmonic intervals in songs of a Neotropical songbird Animal Behaviour, 84 (2), 309-313. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.04.038

Rothenberg, D. (2005). Why Birds Sing: A Journey through the Mystery of Birdsong. New York : Basic Books.

P.S. In the context of earlier discussions on tuning systems (e.g., see blog entry): this study suggests that we might actually not be so sensitive to tuning as we might think.