A knowing ear: The effect of explicit information on children’s experience of a musical performance

Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth; Kisida, Brian; Greene, Jay P.

doi:10.1177/0305735613510343

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This effect was clear in the two music conditions, where participants rated the same music recording significantly better when presented with a high prestige text than when presented with low and medium prestige texts. This finding is consistent with previous research on the effects of explicit information upon aesthetic reactions to music (e.g., Kroger & Margulis, 2016;Margulis, 2010;Margulis et al, 2015;North & Hargreaves, 2005). Using a similar paradigm, where identical artworks were presented with different contextual explicit information varying in prestige, Kirk et al (2009) found that prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices recruited by aesthetic judgments were significantly influenced by the explicit information presented with the same stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Presenting music with explicit information has been shown to be influential in the evaluation of musical performances (Cassidy & Sims, 1991;Cavitt, 1997Cavitt, , 2002Kroger & Margulis, 2016;Margulis, 2010;Margulis, Kisida, & Greene, 2015;North & Hargreaves, 2005;Silveira & Diaz, 2014;Silvey, 2009;Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2013). In an fMRI study, Kirk, Skov, Hulme, Christensen, and Zeki (2009) presented the same images of artworks with different contextual information, varying in prestige (i.e., labeled as ''gallery'' or ''computer generated'').…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Repeated Recording Illusion

Anglada-Tort

Müllensiefen

2017

Music Perception

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The repeated recording illusion refers to the phenomenon in which listeners believe to hear different musical stimuli while they are in fact identical. The present paper aims to construct an experimental paradigm to enable the systematic measurement of this phenomenon, investigating potentially related extrinsic and individual difference factors. Participants were told to listen to “different” musical performances of an original piece when in fact they were exposed to the same repeated recording. Each time, the recording was accompanied by a text suggesting a low, medium, or high prestige of the performer. Most participants (75%) believed that they had heard different musical performances. Participants with high levels of neuroticism and openness were significantly more likely to fall for the illusion. While the explicit information presented with the music influenced participants’ ratings significantly, the effect of repeated exposure was only significant in the more familiar music condition. These results suggest that like many other human judgments, evaluations of music also rely on cognitive biases and heuristics that do not depend on the stimuli themselves. The repeated recording illusion can constitute a useful paradigm for investigating nonmusical factors because it allows for the study of their effects while the music remains the same.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Repeated Recording Illusion

Anglada-Tort

Müllensiefen

2017

Music Perception

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Second, no differences in preference were observed for the two historical conditions between the typical and the unusual pieces (rejecting H3). One interpretation is that unusual music is not impacted by historical framing differently to typical music (largely in line with the results of prior research on historical framing for strictly typical music, e.g., Prince, 1974;Margulis, 2010;Margulis et al, 2015), although due to the lack of additional research on this topic, we also cannot rule out the possibility that the music used in study 3 was still not unusual enough for this to occur. While we intended Elevation to be rated as highly unusual or even at extremely high levels of complexity and puzzlingness, these variables were rated moderately on a scale of 0 to 10 (complexity M = 5.82, SD = 3.05; puzzlingness M = 6.81, SD = 3.15).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Imaginative Enrichment Produces Higher Preference for Unusual Music Than Historical Framing: A Literature Review and Two Empirical Studies

Chmiel

Schubert

2020

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Does accompanying information (“framing”) such as in a program note influence our preference for music? To date the findings have been mixed, although a small body of research has suggested that when framing accompanies music considered unusual (characterized by extreme complexity and extreme unfamiliarity), the music may be preferred compared to when no such framing occurs. A literature review (study 1) revealed that for 50% of experiments where valenced framing (positive versus negative suggestions of prestige) was manipulated, positive framing was accompanied by significantly higher ratings of preference and/or quality judgements. However, only one example contained music that could be considered unusual (atonal music). We therefore conducted two follow-up experiments, with each examining the influence of valenced framing as well as historical framing (accompanying historical details) for music intended to be unusual. Study 2 manipulated framing for an excerpt using atonal music, although we were unable to find evidence that positively valenced historical framing increased preference for this piece. A surprising finding in study 2 was that our active control—requiring the participant to engage imaginatively with the music—produced a significant increase in preference. Subsequently, in study 3 we examined the same three framing conditions and included both an unusual excerpt (free jazz) as well as an over-familiar, typical excerpt for comparison (being a repeatedly pre-exposed classical piano piece). Study 3 produced no significant differences in preference ratings between the two historical conditions, although a positive impact of imagination was again evident. We concluded that the impact of historical framing may be highly subjective and not of favorable consequence to the typical listener. Furthermore, while imaginative engagement appears a fruitful avenue for further preference research, it has been largely ignored.

show abstract

“…Three experiments investigated representational stimuli only, whereas 8 experiments examined both abstract and representational stimuli. Of the 12 experiments using music stimuli, 7 examined classical 1 music only, and 2 explicitly examined modern styles of music: excerpts of dance and electronic music (Anglada-Tort et al, 2018) and “immigrant music, especially the music of the Irish…[that could be] thought of as quintessentially American, such as bluegrass” (Margulis et al, 2015, p. 598). Additionally, one experiment investigated both popular and classical 1 music (Halpern, 1992), another used an instrumental piece from the soundtrack for the television series Band of Brothers (Vuoskoski and Eerola, 2015), and Bradley (1972) investigated 24 “contemporary art compositions” that represented tonal, polytonal, atonal, and electronic music.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psycho-Historical Contextualization for Music and Visual Works: A Literature Review and Comparison Between Artistic Mediums

Chmiel

Schubert

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A significant contribution to the literature on aesthetics in the last decade has been Bullot and Reber's ecologically-driven psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation (PHF). The framework proposes that the presence of contextualizing information accompanying an artwork will impart a substantial impact on appreciation for it, which is accessible through understanding of the causal information surrounding the work. Artistic understanding is outlined in terms of three hierarchical “modes” of appreciation. This paper tested a simplified hypothesis drawn from the PHF, using results reported in the existing literature. As Bullot and Reber note that such a framework is relevant for any artistic medium containing causal information, results were drawn from literature concerned with either music or visual works. Our review identified 34 studies that reported results of appreciation (or equivalent) as a dependent variable, while manipulating contextual/historical information for the stimuli as an independent variable. Overall the results were consistent across the two artistic mediums: 9 experiments (26%) produced strong support for the PHF, 6 experiments (18%) produced inconclusive results, and 19 experiments (56%) produced no support for the PHF. We concluded that the majority of the reviewed literature does not support the simplified PHF hypothesis for either medium. However, we also discuss a number of limitations surrounding these studies which may have produced a substantial impact on the categorization results: small sample sizes in some studies, difficulty in translating philosophically-based theory into empirical practice, and interactions with variables such as exposure and “unusualness.”

show abstract

A knowing ear: The effect of explicit information on children’s experience of a musical performance

Cited by 17 publications

References 14 publications

The Repeated Recording Illusion

The Repeated Recording Illusion

Imaginative Enrichment Produces Higher Preference for Unusual Music Than Historical Framing: A Literature Review and Two Empirical Studies

Psycho-Historical Contextualization for Music and Visual Works: A Literature Review and Comparison Between Artistic Mediums

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About