Snyder: Music And Memory

Front 1

Parts of memory model:

Back 1

1. Echoic memory and early processing
2.

Front 2

Feature extraction

Back 2

Feature extraction: features of the sound event, such as it's frequency spectrum, amplitude are extracted by combining several individual neurons that carry the information

Front 3

Perceptual binding:

Back 3

binds the isolated outputs from separate feature extractors into coherent auditory events. Ex. combining the change that marks the beginning of a note with its frequency and tone color

Front 4

Short-term memory (STM) process

Back 4

-lasts 3-5 sec on avg.
-avg. 7 elements
-contains categorized memories, both perceptual and LTM
-reverberating pattern of recirculating electrical energy, that sustains the current pattern of neural activity

Front 5

Focus of conscious awareness

Back 5

-Only completely conscious part of STM
-All of STM immediately available to conscious awareness, but 3 at most, usually 1 object in consciousness at a time

Front 6

Chunks

Back 6

small groupings frequently associated with each other and capable of forming higher-level units, which themselves become elements in memory (example of 14921776, groups of 4 numbers which are date chunks)

Front 7

rehearsal

Back 7

the active maintenance of elements in short-term memory, by consciously repeating something to ourselves

Front 8

working memory

Back 8

consists of immediate perceptions and related activated long-term memories, as well as LTM that is semi-activated but not yet in consciousness and semi-activated STM that has just moved out of consciousness

Front 9

echoic/sensory memory

Back 9

a short echo of the raw sensory electrical impulses in the brain; usually decays in less than a second; pre-categorical

Front 10

semantic memory

Back 10

memories of abstract concepts, or categories of objects or events eg. knowing the names of notes, ABCD

Front 11

Episodic memory

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memories of specific experiences or events, placed in the ongoing context of a person's life
-episodic memories are partly constructed using our knowledge categories (semantic memories)

Front 12

window of simultaneity

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-applies to isolated pair of events
-if clicks are closer together than 2 msec, will appear to be simultaneous
-window for simultaneity is smallest for auditory system compared to all other senses

Front 13

threshold of order

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-isolated pairs of events
-between 3-25 msec
-time window during which two events will be heard as separate, but you can't distinguish the order between the two
-appears to be established in higher centers of the brain

Front 14

pitch fusion threshold

Back 14

-long chains of events
-when individual events of a chain are separated by less than (1/20) sec (50 msec)

Front 15

Schema

Back 15

-organized sets of memories about sequences of events or physical scenes
-schemas may be organized purely in terms of the situation
-we form an abstract model of a situation, based on the invariant aspects that our repeated encounters have in common
-ex. eating in restaurant: ordering, eating, paying the bill

Front 16

what are the survival advantages of categorization?

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quickly provides the appropriate response to a situation without having to consider each new situation in all of its detail
-speedy, reduces memory load

Front 17

perceptual categories: continuous vs. discrete perception

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-given a continuous stimulus, we will tend to perceive only a limited number of discrete categories within that range
-also discrete events in time

Front 18

nuance

Back 18

the variation that takes place inside the boundaries of a musical category
ex. bending of pitches, vibrato
-represented at the level of echoic memory