MUSIC-COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY SOUND RECORDING ENRICHES STUDENTS' MUSIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS IN AN EXTRACURRICULAR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Introduction: The objective of our study was to evaluate musical perception and its relation to the quality of life in patients with bimodal binaural auditory stimulation.Materials and Methods: Nineteen adult patients with a cochlear implant (CI) for minimum 6 months, and moderate to severe contralateral hearing loss with a hearing aid (HA), and 21 normal hearing adults were included in this prospective, cross-sectional study. Pure-tone and speech audiometry, musical test evaluating sound perception characteristics and musical listening abilities, Munich questionnaire for musical habits, and the APHAB questionnaire were recoded. Performance in musical perception test with HA, CI, and HA + CI, and potential correlations between music test, audiometry and questionnaires were investigated.Results: Bimodal stimulation improved musical perception in several features (sound brightness, roughness, and clarity) in comparison to unimodal hearing, but CI did not add to HA performances in texture, polyphony or musical emotion and even appeared to interfere negatively in pitch perception with HA. Musical perception performances (sound clarity, instrument recognition) appeared to be correlated to hearing-related quality of life (APHAB RV and EC subdomains) but not with speech performances suggesting that the exploration of musical perception complements speech understanding evaluation to better describe every-day life hearing handicap.Conclusion: Testing musical sound perception provides important information on hearing performances as a complement to speech audiometry and appears to be related to hearing-related quality of life.

Figure: © iStock/chaossCochlear implants (CIs) have allowed users to understand speech and interact with the auditory world. However, CI recipients still have difficulty perceiving nonspeech sounds, especially music. Music appreciation is important to evaluate in CI users because of its association with quality of life, personal expression, and social connectedness.Figure: Alice HeCochlear implant recipients have difficulty recognizing musical melodies, identifying instrument sounds, and differentiating pitch. However, perceptual accuracy is not the only important aspect in music listening. The way music sounds as a whole through the cochlear implant has clinical relevance, as it relates to the user's ability to appreciate and enjoy music in everyday life.Figure: Charles J. Limb, MDWhile one might anticipate a direct link between cochlear implant recipients’ ability to perceive music accurately and their degree of music appreciation, the early literature has not supported this idea. In fact, some studies suggest exactly the opposite—that there is little to no relationship between music perception and appraisal in CI users ( J Am Acad Audiol 2012;23[5]:350-365http://aaa.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/aaa/jaaa/2012/00000023/00000005/art00006). However, these previous results were obtained from small cohorts of cochlear implant recipients in controlled laboratory settings, with tests that require significant time to administer, limiting their applicability in clinical settings. In a new study, Ward R. Drennan, PhD, and colleagues evaluated the correlation between music perception and appraisal among a large cohort of CI users in clinical settings. The authors used shorter music tests to determine if these assessments could be administered in the clinic and whether findings would be consistent with previous results from smaller sample sizes. Clinical Evaluation of Music Perception, Appraisal, and Experience in Cochlear Implant Users Drennan WR, Oleson JJ, Gfeller K, et al Int J Audiol Sept. 1, 2014; e-pub ahead of printhttp://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14992027.2014.948219 The Clinical Assessment of Music Perception (CAMP) test is commonly used in some laboratories to study CI users’ music perception ( Otol Neurotol 2008;29[2]:149-155http://journals.lww.com/otology-neurotology/Abstract/2008/02000/Clinical_Assessment_of_Music_Perception_in.10.aspx; Ear Hear 2009;30[4]:411-418http://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Abstract/2009/08000/Development_and_Validation_of_the_University_of.4.aspx). The CAMP includes three separate perception tests, each designed to evaluate a different element of music perception ability: pitch direction discrimination, familiar melody recognition, and timbre recognition. Since these three elements are relevant to music listening and enjoyment, Dr. Drennan et al used the CAMP test to study music perception. To assess music appraisal, the researchers used the Iowa Musical Background Questionnaire (IMBQ). In the IMBQ, CI recipients described the quality of music heard through their cochlear implant by rating six bipolar adjectives on a scale of zero to 10: clear versus fuzzy, easy to follow versus difficult to follow, like versus dislike, sounds unlike music versus sounds like music, unnatural versus natural, and unpleasant versus pleasant. Prior research identified these comparisons as relevant to music listening. The CAMP test and IMBQ were administered to 145 CI listeners across 14 clinical sites in the United States and Canada. It took 30 minutes to 35 minutes to administer the CAMP test, and another 15 minutes to 25 minutes to complete the IMBQ. These time frames are reasonable for administration in the clinic—a major advantage in terms of practical feasibility, the authors noted. WEAK RELATIONSHIP REPORTED In their group of cochlear implant users from several clinical settings, Dr. Drennan and colleagues found weak relationships between CAMP results and IMBQ musical sound quality scores. There was a statistically significant but slight correlation between the CAMP's timbre test component and music appraisal, suggesting a relatively weak association between the two. All other relationships were deemed insignificant. This lack of a strong association, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies ( J Am Acad Audiol 2012;23[5]:350-365http://aaa.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/aaa/jaaa/2012/00000023/00000005/art00006; J Am Acad Audiol 2008;19[2]:120-134http://aaa.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/aaa/jaaa/2008/00000019/00000002/art00003) means that in order to fully evaluate CI music functionality, it is not sufficient to test either music perception or music appraisal alone. Both measures need to be evaluated, as sufficiency or deficiency in one aspect does not correlate with the same result in the other aspect. These results also highlight the limitations of subjective musical sound quality assessment and the possible benefits of objective approaches ( Otol Neurotol 2012;33[3]:319-327http://journals.lww.com/otology-neurotology/Abstract/2012/04000/Assessment_of_Sound_Quality_Perception_in_Cochlear.7.aspx). In an objective approach, the goal is not to evaluate how pleasant or unpleasant music may sound, or whether the CI user enjoys it. Rather, the goal is to measure the capacity of a cochlear implant user to detect a deterioration of sound quality in response to experimental manipulation of any given sound parameter. MANY FACTORS AFFECT ENJOYMENT Dr. Drennan and colleagues noted limitations of their study design. For example, the CAMP was conducted without hearing aids, even if listeners used hearing aids regularly. While the IMBQ questionnaire asked about music appraisal based on real-world musical listening experiences, the CAMP used simple, controlled sound stimuli to assess basic music perception abilities instead of using real-world stimuli. To some extent, these study design decisions might have affected CI users’ music test scores. Despite these potential limitations, the authors make a compelling argument that perceptual acuity is not closely related to music appraisal ratings. In other words, cochlear implant users can have poor perceptual abilities and still feel that music sounds good or is highly enjoyable. Conversely, CI users can perceive various aspects of music well while feeling that music sounds poor or not enjoying what they are able to hear. The study by Dr. Drennan and colleagues underscores the notion that the musical experience is linked to many factors. Furthermore, these findings suggest that studying individual elements of music in isolation may not accurately reflect the perceptual salience of music when it's presented in its natural form—a composite of a wide range of components. In this study, the authors demonstrated that there is little to no relationship between music acuity and music appraisal. Both aspects are important clinical outcomes, as one addresses patient functionality and ability (acuity), while the other addresses patient feeling and overall satisfaction with music quality (appraisal). These findings strongly suggest the need for further research to overcome limitations in cochlear implant users’ ability to perceive music, and to understand the factors that limit enjoyment or satisfaction in music listening.

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The aim of this study was to develop a music literacy framework, construct a 20-item music literacy assessment (MLA), and evaluate the reliability and validity of the MLA for general classroom teachers (GCTs). The sample included 156 participants for pilot testing and 566 participants for formal surveys of early childhood and primary school GCTs in Taiwan. Four factors were hypothesized and empirically tested: musical experience, music perception and understanding, musical performance and skills, and emotional expression and communication. Exploratory factor analysis of pilot testing through purposive sampling (N = 156) was conducted, and the four-factor structure of the MLA was confirmed. Confirmatory factor analysis of a formal survey through random sampling (N = 566) was conducted and verified as a good fit between the MLA and the sample data. Each MLA factor exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity. Research evidence revealed that of the four dimensions, music perception and understanding received the highest level of confidence, whereas musical performance and skills received the lowest. These findings may support future research investigating the application of the MLA in different countries and curriculum offerings for GCTs seeking to increase their music literacy.

To investigate the music perception skills of adult cochlear implant (CI) users in comparison with hearing aid (HA) users who have similar levels of hearing impairment. It was hypothesized that the HA users would perform better than the CI recipients on tests involving pitch, instrument, and melody perception, but similarly for rhythm perception. Fifteen users of the Nucleus CI system and 15 HA users participated in a series of music perception tests. All subjects were postlingually deafened adults, with the HA subjects being required to meet the current audiological criteria for CI candidacy. A music test battery was designed for the study incorporating four major tasks: (1) discrimination of 38 pairs of rhythms; (2) pitch ranking of one-octave, half-octave, and quarter-octave intervals; (3) instrument recognition incorporating three subtests, each with 12 different instruments or ensembles; and (4) recognition of 10 familiar melodies. Stimuli were presented via direct audio input at comfortable presentation levels. The test battery was administered to each subject on two separate occasions, approximately 4 mo apart. The results from the rhythm test were 93% correct for the CI group and 94% correct for the HA group; these scores were not significantly different. For the pitch test, there was a significant difference between the HA group and the CI group (p < 0.001), with higher mean scores recorded by the HA group for all three interval sizes. The CI subject group was unable to rank pitches a quarter-octave apart, only scoring at chance level for this interval size. In the instrument recognition test, although there was no significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups, both groups obtained significantly higher scores for the subtest incorporating single instrument stimuli than those incorporating multiple instrumentations (p < 0.001). In the melody test, there was a significant difference between the implantees' mean score of 52% correct and the HA group's mean of 91% (p < 0.001). As hypothesized, results from the two groups were almost identical for the rhythm test, with the HA group performing significantly better than the CI group on the pitch and melody tests. However, there was no difference between the groups in their ability to identify musical instruments or ensembles. The results of this study indicate that HA users with similar levels of hearing loss perform at least equal to, if not better than, CI users on these music perception tests. However, despite the differences between scores obtained by the CI and HA subject groups, both these subject groups were largely unable to achieve accurate or effective music perception, regardless of the device they used.

Teachers’ confidence in navigating the complexities of ‘being a teacher’ influence their behaviour, how they are perceived, how they make sense of their environment and circumstances and their successes. A web-based survey was developed and distributed to music teachers via an online community of practice. This paper reports on the respondents’ self-reported confidence through the use of an Importance-Confidence Analysis. The responses of early career music teachers and experienced teachers are also compared to understand confidence over the career. Results show that both early career and later career teachers placed greater importance on pedagogical knowledge and skills relative to professional knowledge and skills and music knowledge and skills. Later career teachers reported greater confidence with respect to pedagogical knowledge and professional knowledge compared with teachers who were early in their career, whereas music knowledge and skills were viewed quite similarly by teachers across the career. The analysis highlights the need for ongoing support for experienced teachers alongside early career teachers. Recommendations are made for ongoing support of teachers throughout their careers.

People of all ages enjoy listening to music, yet most research inmusical development has concentrated on infancy through childhood. Our recent research program examined various aspects of music cognition younger (ages 18 through 30) and older adults (ages 60 through 80) with varying amounts of musical experience. The studies investigated the independent and combined influences of age and experience on a wide assortment of long and short-term memory tasks. Results showed that some musical tasks reflect the same age-related declines as seen nonmusical tasks, and musical training does not reduce these age-related declines. In other tasks, experience differences were larger than age differences; some cases, age differences were nonexistent. The analysis considers how aging and experience may affect different aspects of cognition, and the paper concludes by pointing out the many musical activities that even nonmusical seniors are well equipped to succeed at and enjoy. Why study age differences memory for music? If shear neglect of a topic can justify it being studied, then surely our question is answered. The voluminous literature on age differences memory includes only a handful of studies that use musical materials. Recent reviews of this Ii terature by Anderson and Craik (2000), Balota, Dolan, and Duchek (2000), and Backman, Small, and Wahlin (2001 ) do not mention music, and another review by Zacks, Hasher, & Li (2000) mentions only one relevant study. Similarly, only rarely do music cognition journals carry articles concerning age differences. It is clear that we know little about music cognition old age. But neglect of the problem is only one reason why it needs to be addressed. Several additional reasons come readily to mind. First, everyday observation suggests that older adults enjoy and participate musical activities. Musical activities have an overall positive effect among people suffering from dementia (Koger, Chapin, & Brotons, 1999) as well among their healthy peers (Darrough & Boswell, 1992). A survey by Gibbons ( 1982) found that 84% of a sample of 152 healthy elderly people wished to improve their musical skills. MUsiC therapists have published suggestions for music programs with the elderly (Bell, 1987; Clair, 1996; Glassman, 1983; Hintz, 2000). However, the dearth of research makes it difficult for therapists to really understand the musical capabilities of their elderly clients. Among the questions that basic research on music and aging can help answer is whether a person can maintain or even improve her or his skill level if given musical training, and to what extent musical programs for older adults should emphasize exposure to familiar vs. new pieces and styles. second, music may be an ideal domain to study the aging of domainspecific processes compared to the aging of general-purpose operations of learning and memory. For example, researchers currently are interested changes short-term, or working memory with age. Not only are investigators studying the nature of age differences working memory itself, they also are examining whether deficits working memory processes may underlie age differences long-term memory, prose comprehension, and other cognitive domains. Yet tests of working memory almost always use verbal or visuospatial stimuli, and, for this reason, the dominant model of working memory (Baddeley, 1986) distinguishes only three basic components: a phonological loop, a visuospatial scratchpad, and a central executive. The familiar experience of having a tune in our head suggests the operation of a melodic (Berz, 1995) that might show age differences and have functional importance for a variety of music-related.activities including learning new tunes, recalling old tunes, and, perhaps most important, simply appreciating music. To examine this loop across the adult lifespan is certainly a task that is well worth our time. …

Objective --To evaluate musical perception in adult cochlear implant (CI) recipients, i.e. perceptual accuracy for pitch, timbre, rhythmic patterns and song identification. Material and Methods --Twenty-nine adult patients were included in this transverse single-center study. Evaluative measures included tests assessing ability to discriminate pitch, rhythm and timbre and to identify nursery songs with and without verbal cues. Performance scores were correlated with duration of deafness, duration of implantation, speech discrimination and musical perception skills. Results --A total of 38% of patients reported that they did not enjoy listening to music with their device and 86% presented lower scores of listening habits after implantation. We found positive correlations between musical background and pitch identification and identification of nursery songs played by piano. We also found positive correlations between speech discrimination and rhythm, timbre and identification of nursery songs with verbal cues. Conclusion --Trends in the patterns of correlation between speech and music perception suggest that music patterns are differentially accessible to CI users. New processing strategies may improve this.

Perception of music and speech is based on similar auditory skills, and it is often suggested that those with enhanced music perception skills may perceive and learn novel words more easily. The current study tested whether music perception abilities are associated with novel word learning in an ambiguous learning scenario. Using a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task, nonmusician adults were exposed to word-object pairings between eight novel words and visual referents. Novel words were either non-minimal pairs differing in all sounds or minimal pairs differing in their initial consonant or vowel. In order to be successful in this task, learners need to be able to correctly encode the phonological details of the novel words and have sufficient auditory working memory to remember the correct word-object pairings. Using the Mistuning Perception Test (MPT) and the Melodic Discrimination Test (MDT), we measured learners’ pitch perception and auditory working memory. We predicted that those with higher MPT and MDT values would perform better in the CSWL task and in particular for novel words with high phonological overlap (i.e., minimal pairs). We found that higher musical perception skills led to higher accuracy for non-minimal pairs and minimal pairs differing in their initial consonant. Interestingly, this was not the case for vowel minimal pairs. We discuss the results in relation to theories of second language word learning such as the Second Language Perception model (L2LP).

In the last decade, the Republic of Croatia has witnessed a continuous increase in municipal waste, but at the same time, there has been a steady rise in the rate of recovery and recycling. However, despite the positive trends, the set goals of waste management have still not been achieved dynamics of waste separation and processing. The City of Ludbreg, with almost 52 % of separately collected municipal waste, represents a successful model of sustainable and circular waste management, placing it among the only nine towns in the Republic of Croatia that have exceeded a 50 % rate of separately collected waste. This paper analyses the application of a circular waste management system in the City of Ludbreg and its role in achieving high recycling rates. Special emphasis is placed on the transformation of the local environment, including the elimination of illegal dumps and the creation of green spaces. The City of Ludbreg exemplifies how local communities can lead in circular economy practices by merging technological innovations with ecological awareness. Key success factors include education, local participation, and the integration of smart technologies in waste management. In conclusion, this research analyzes the challenges in separate waste collection and provides recommendations for further development and improvement of the waste management system at the local level, with the aim of achieving sustainable development goals. The result is the creation of an innovative and modern system that functionally integrates technology, infrastructure, and active participation of the local community, positioning the City of Ludbreg as an example of good and successful practice of a green and smart city.

Various methods have been used in an attempt to reveal salient parameters for musical timbre perception and to estimate perceptual distances between timbres based on their spectra. The multidimensional scaling method compares exemplars of musical sounds using listener estimation of timbral dissimilarity between sound pairs. Data are coalesced into a space whose dimensions are easily interpretable in terms of acoustic parameters such as spectral centroid, spectral flux, spectral irregularity, and attack time. Sounds can be normalized with respect to some parameters in order to reveal others. The direct comparison method attempts to discover how discrimination, recognition, and degree of perceptual dissimilarity depend on the degree of modification of the time-varying spectrum or of particular features of the spectrum. Morphing between spectrum pairs is one method of producing spectral modifications. Dissimilarity can be predicted by computing a “distance” between two time-varying spectra. For musical sounds, spectral distance has been computed by taking the average Cartesian distance between spectral measures treated as vectors. For constant-F0 sounds, the most obvious vector is the set of harmonic amplitudes, either in linear or decibel units. Other vectors are based on critical bands and cepstral coefficients. [Work supported by Research Grants Council Grant No. 613508.]

Involuntary musical imagery (INMI, or “earworms”) are short, repetitive sections of music that spontaneously occur. Prior research observed significant positive correlations between self-reported music experience and frequency of earworms, and the use of earworms to enhance semantic memory. Previous hypotheses suggest that singing accuracy uses voluntary imagery to help people imitate pitches, and that singing accuracy is positively related to an individual’s music perception abilities. However, we know of no research that has assessed the associations between INMI and non-self-reported musical abilities (specifically looking at singing accuracy and music perception). Participants (N = 152) completed tasks assessing their singing accuracy (the Seattle Singing Accuracy Protocol; SSAP), music perception (the Profile of Music Skills; Mini-PROMS), and a self-report measure of involuntary musical imagery (the Involuntary Musical Imagery Survey; IMIS). Here we show that earworms are associated with both singing accuracy and music perception. These results suggest that musical ability is associated with the quality of auditory imagery experiences, though not necessarily the frequency with which images spontaneously emerge into one’s consciousness.

Purpose of this essay is to provide a historical overview how music has dealt with the emotion and sensation of pain, as well as an overview over the more recent medical research into the relationship of music and pain. Since the beginnings of western music humans have put their emotions into musical sounds. During the baroque era, composers developed musical styles that expressed human emotions and our experiences of nature. In some compositions, like in operas, we find musical representations of pain. During Romanticism artists began to intrude into the soul of their audience. New expressive harmonies and styles touch the soul and the consciousness of the listener. With the inception of atonality dissonant sounds where experienced as a physical pain.The physiology of deep brain structures (like thalamus, hypothalamus or limbic system) and the physiology of the acoustic pathway process consonant and dissonant sound and musical perceptions in ways, that are similar to the perception of pain. In the thalamus and in the limbic system music and pain meet.The relationships of music and pain is a wide open research field with such interesting questions as the role of dopamine in the perception of consonant or dissonant music, or the processing of pain during music listening. Musicology has not yet embarked on a general investigation of how musical compositions express pain and how that has developed or changed over the centuries. Music therapy, neuro-musicology and the performing arts medicine are scientific fields that offer a lot of ideas for medical and musical research projects.

The story of how conflict prevention became an integral and legitimate part of Swedish foreign policy illustrates the relationship between successful practices and powerful ideas. This article suggests that the demonstration of an idea in practice empowers the idea and contributes not only to its selection, but also to its framing and institutionalization within foreign policy. Hence, the article sets out to explore the relationships between practice, ideas and foreign policy. Adopting a social constructivist perspective, the article provides a detailed process-tracing of the construction of a Swedish conflict prevention policy and concludes that conflict prevention was a powerful idea because it was morally appealing and persuasive as well as successfully demonstrated in practice. In fact, preventive practices spearheaded the advancement of the conflict prevention idea. In addition, the idea resonated with the Swedish foreign policy elite, with commonly held values and with the traditional Swedish foreign policy that stressed internationalism and solidarity.

Entrepreneurship education is offered at all levels of education. This theme resonates in many strategic documents at the national and European levels. The first aim of this paper is to present two educational activities aimed at developing the entrepreneurial skills of university students in the Czech Republic. The second objective is to present the results of surveys conducted among students of a university-wide elective course focused on the above-mentioned area. Survey was focused on motivation and expectations from participating in the course. The most substantive responses are presented in the paper. These activities are also inspiring for contemporary engineering pedagogy.