Cultural constraints on music perception and cognition - Steven J. Morrison and Steven M. Demorest

Being at the very heart of human evolution, music has created and afforded spaces for individual and collective ideas, thoughts, or conceptions. Since the beginning of history, music’s ability to hold multiple interpretations may have enabled interactions and negotiations among the early human societies. 

 

Foundations of music enculturation

 

When it comes to music, fundamental components such as pitch or duration aren’t really defined by culture. We talk about musical enculturation when studying the relationship of certain groups of people to these kinds of constructs. For example, when understating if a specific pitch or duration is considered typical, acceptable, or desired among a group of people (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 67).

 

A few examples of the influence of enculturation in music are people’s responses to pitch, rhythm, and more complex musical structures such as scalar or metrics. The different responses observed between cultural groups reflect differences in the way individuals interact with music. For example, certain aspects of sensitivity can change based on cultural norms, influencing the way people interpret melodic complexity (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 70).

  

Studies using functional imaging have demonstrated how certain areas of the brain activate while listening to familiar or culturally unfamiliar melodies (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 70). Comparing responses to music from different cultures reflects the contrast between organized and “differently organized sounds”, which may result in subtle differences in behavioral and neurological responses to music (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71).

 

Another big aspect of music processing is an affective response. Meaning that listeners with different levels of formal musical training can successfully distinguish joyful, sad or angry emotions in instrumental performances (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71). People respond differently according to their context and while some listeners may be comfortable selecting specific adjectives to describe music examples, others won’t (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71).

 

This sensitivity to affective content doesn’t seem to be independent of sensitivity to technical aspects, such as loudness or tempo. Studies proved how people who listened to music constructed with familiar rules and conventions were more likely to process it better, retaining basic information such as the instruments, tempo or even deeper forms and structures of the performance (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71). Basically, listeners are more likely to get the “idea” of culturally familiar music. Leading to better notions and ideas of what was heard (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71).

 

Memory also plays a role when it comes to culturally familiar and unfamiliar music. Researchers had hypothesized that listening to culturally familiar music would produce higher levels of brain activity, such as those present when listening to a familiar language. However, scanning the data didn’t reveal any activity unique to familiar music (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 71). Participants were also more successful in remembering culturally familiar music than unfamiliar music (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 72). 


In the future, this kind of research can help reveal more about the way in which individuals gain knowledge of unfamiliar music systems (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 72). The application of neuroscientific research methods to music and culture studies is still in its early stages, but it has revealed that different musical systems require different cognitive demands (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 74).

 

Finally, it is important to note that music and culture are bound together. Music itself is a practice shared across human societies giving way to cultural differences. Far from being a cultural artifact, music may be seen as a manifestation of culturally rooted cognitive processes (Morrison and Demorest, 2009, p. 75).

 

 

Reference:


Morrison, S. J., & Demorest, S. M. (2009). Cultural constraints on music perception and cognition. Progress in brain research, 178, 67–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(09)17805-6

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