UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Musical Illusions: Applying the Psychology of Auditory Perception to Modern Composition.

Peter Bryant
5/22/2012

Abstract: For well over a century the fields of music and psychology have been largely incompatible, the focus on the arts and sciences has been in creative and scientific research and focused by the demand for original research. In this paper I attempt to address music and psychology through the overlapping tool of musical illusions. These phenomena have the unique ability to function both as a neuroscientific and psychological research tool and an auditory specimen with which to inform compositional practice. I shall identify specific areas of the brain that are responsible for the processing of auditory information and provide evidence as to how this information is processed. I shall compose two original works Collateral and ULTRA, during the course of my research, to demonstrate the applications and uses of music psychology in the field of composition and also provide examples of other compositions that have used similar techniques. I hope to also demonstrate how principles from the field of composition such as orchestration and acoustics can contribute to music psychology research for the benefit of both fields.

Musical Illusions: Applying the Psychology of Auditory Perception to Modern Composition. Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 2 A Composers Guide to the Brain .................................................................................................... 4 The Brain and Music.................................................................................................................. 4 Music and Neuroscience ........................................................................................................... 6 Music Psychology.................................................................................................................... 13 Auditory and Visual processing similarities and differences..................................................... 17 The Musical Applications of Psychological Research .................................................................. 23 Applications in Compositional Practice......................................................................................... 26 COLLATERAL (2012)................................................................................................................. 26 The Tritone Paradox ...................................................................................................... 29 The Cambiata Illusion .................................................................................................... 31 The Chromatic Illusion................................................................................................... 33 ULTRA (2012).......................................................................................................................... 34 The Octave Illusion........................................................................................................ 36 The Scale Illusion........................................................................................................... 38 Illusions and Speech Perception and the Mysterious melody........................................... 39 The Quickening Pulse.................................................................................................... 40 The Shepard Tone......................................................................................................... 42 Conclusions................................................................................................................................ 44 Bibliography............................................................................................................................... 45

Introduction
The psychology and cognition of music is a remarkable process, and arguably the most important1 , sophisticated2 and holistic3 sense that humans possess. Hearing involves perception, cognitive processing, and a neurological response from a diverse range of brain areas and processes4 . These processes are so sophisticated and rely on such as diverse areas that research on how we perceive and experience auditory information is only in the primitive stages of development. The result of any perceptual experience is conscious awareness. Since the complex and paradoxical field of consciousness is by far from exhaustively researched there are still a great many challenges to be overcome until the black box of consciousness (Plomp, 2001) is capable of generating a satisfactory theory of how music functions on a neurological basis5 . However, there is no shortage of supporting anecdotal evidence, the majority of this originated from patients suffering from brain trauma or other ailments that, through their symptoms and issues, begin to shed light on what the brain is actually accomplishing in order to process sounds. By their nature as bizarre and paradoxical perceptual experiences, musical illusions from a significant part of this evidence and by collating this, we can begin to build a rough picture of the brain mechanisms underlying perception and begin to generate hypothesise to test our theories. This testing of hypotheses generated throughout the last century has already had a huge boost from recent technological advances such as FMRI and EEG studies allowing the rigor of the scientific process to accompany the anecdotal evidence

See (Rees, 2010, p. 1) for a brief discussion of the survival importance of auditory information and (Changizi, 2011, p. 29) for a more in depth discussion and anecdotal evidence from a blind individual. 2 (Plomp, 2001) 3 The argument that one particular side of the brain is more musical than the other died long ago in academic literature. See my chapter on Brain Lateralisation for a more comprehensive review. (Levitin, 2008, p. 9) 4 Music is the most complex sense we possess in terms of the amount of brain areas that process simple tones let alone entire songs or symphonies (Ball, 2010, p. 241). 5 See (Thompson, 2009).

and increase interest from a wide range of related but disperate disciplines. (Ball, 2010, p. 241; Toga, 2000, p. 365; Jordain, 1997, p. 286). One of the best ways to demonstrate auditory illusions is by using and explaining certain visual illusions, as the cognitive mechanisms for both sensory experiences are very similar. Continuing this line of development throughout this paper will help to better comprehend auditory illusions by connecting both types of illusion together both for the purposes of understanding and to demonstrate their similarities and differences.

A Composers Guide to the Brain

The Brain and Music

Sound enters the ear from the external world and transforms into an electrical signal though the processes of the eardrum and cochlea. This electrical signal passes along the auditory nerve diverging into and passing thorough many intermediate processing areas on its way to the auditory cortex. Once there the signal spits further into many parts and is distributed to many different areas of the cortex that adopt designated tasks in order to process the sound as quickly and efficiently as possible. Neuroscientific research has uncovered a large amount of evidence about which areas, processes and functions within the brain are involved in the cognition of music with the use of brain imaging techniques such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) (Levitin, 2008, p. 126). However, the use of such techniques is still proving to be a controversial, difficult, and subjective issue in modern brain science with some psychologists such as Professor Richard Wiseman believing that the technique obfuscates and distracts from genuine research and is purely a means to an end. This opinion is present even among neuroscientists with Vincent Walsh believing that the very act of an experiment affects the outcome and therefore can only provide limited results and conclusions (Walsh, 2012). Part of the problem is that the data has to undergo interpretation by both computers and humans in order to construct meaning therefore involving a large element of subjectivity (Jordain, 1997, p. 284). There is also a large amount of research conducted on animals purely for the (comparatively) relaxed ethics, the conclusions of which contribute to the theory on human cognition (Toga, 2000, p. 366) when the debate of whether animals are conscious or not is still debatable (Blackmore, 2005, p. 123). This is highly problematic; even when there is a consensus among researchers that the data captured is of a reliable quality, there is still the requirement of further data (replication)

to back up the claims provided due to issues of resolution and the difficulties in drawing solid conclusions from dynamic subject matter (Ball, 2010, p. 241; Changizi, 2010, p. 19). Despite these difficulties, brain scans are reasonable tools for demonstrating the distribution of brain areas on a macroscopic scale. Therefore, we now have a limited, macroscopic, and general understanding of the neurology of the brain when we experience musical information (Jordain, 1997, p. 286). Neuroscience does not currently seem like a promising avenue for further investigation on the topic of musical illusions. According to Dr. Tim Hughes we are decades away from understanding the nuances of musical processing from a neuroscientific level6 . Part of the reason is that every brain processes the same information differently depending on genetics, experiences, or other genial circumstances. (Walsh, 2012, p. 6). Furthermore, most of the research usually originates from abnormal patients who have suffered neurological injuries in very specific areas of their brain and consequently lost a very distinct musical (or other) attribute that has then, post hoc, been attributed to that area (Sacks, 2011, p. 106). These issues will develop and become exacerbated as the 21 st century progresses now that brain imaging no longer requires an autopsy. Other methods such as MRI scanning that provide detailed images of brain structures are now available with the added benefit that patients can be alive and conscious and therefore results can be achieved with much less effort. (Deutsch, 1998, p. 656; Jordain, 1997, p. 286).

Personal correspondence. 2 nd May 2012.

Music and Neuroscience

Auditory processing is not a linear process but a pluralistic and many facetted set of systems. It is so complex that it is well beyond the scope of this paper to address the vast field in anything approaching a comprehensive review. The simplified description outlined below focusses on building a perspective of understanding the mechanisms that may contribute towards the perception of musical illusions. There are two derivatives of the auditory pathway; the ascending auditory pathway (AAP) and the descending auditory pathway (DAP). Broadly speaking, AAP describes how sounds from the outside world are perceived by the eardrum, digitized into electrical signals by the cochlear, and then processed by differing parts of the brain. DAP describes the same process and is parallel to the AAP but in reverse and functions as a filter on the perception of sounds (specifically amplification or gain) enabling us to focus on specific aspects of sound or blocking some sounds almost entirely7 . (Rees, 2010, pp. 12 ; Meller, 2000, pp. 76, 89, 122). Auditory processing is the only sense that has this ability to focus and control the perception of a stimulus in real time; there is no haptic, olfactory, gustatory, or visual equivalent that has such a large degree of control over the perceptual experience (Rees, 2010, pp. 1, 9). The auditory nerve passes modules that refine the electrical signal until it reaches the top of the auditory pathway, the auditory cortex within the Sylvain fissure of the bran, right in the centre of both hemispheres.

For a more comprehensive overview see Oxford handbook of Auditory Science Vol. 2 by Adrian Rees.
Angular Gyrus associated with language, metaphor, and mathematics (Ramachandran, 2003) Supramarginal Gyrus associated with language processing and perception ( (Gazzaniga, 2009) Broca's area associated with language and speech perception (Gazzaniga, 2009). Wernicke's area associated with language and speech perception (Gazzaniga, 2009). Primary Auditory Cortex the main processing house for auditory information. (Beament, 2003, p. 93)

Figure 1: The Auditory Brain (main areas).

The brain spits the electrical signal into many constituent parts; the path is often simplified broadly into two distinct but related mechanisms. The auditory nerve is the first of these to encounter an incoming sound. This nerve then has the remarkable property of carrying signals in either direction with 50,000 fibres per ear for incoming signals and 1800 for descending signals (Hodges, 2011, p. 103). From this point, the pathway becomes extremely sophisticated as the auditory nerve splits and combines signals from both ears eventually arriving at the auditory cortex where one hundred million brain cells somehow reconstruct the electrical signal into a conscious experience of sound (Hodges, 2011, pp. 99 109). However, the parallel processing does not stop here as connected to the auditory core region are many areas of the brain (the auditory association cortex) that also contribute (Koelsch, 2012, p. 13) to the perception of musical sound including areas that at first do not appear to have a strong connection to music such as the visual or motor cortices.

Figure 2: Further areas of the brain involved in the perception and processing of auditory stimuli. (Levitin, 2008)

The arrangement of the auditory pathway is so autonomous that there is evidence that it continues to function when the perceiver is unconscious or suffered significant brain trauma where all other senses have ceased to function (Sission, 1990; Liberati A. et al, 2009; Owen, 2010; Sautoy, 2009). The layout is also extremely logical with many cognitive maps that accurately represent the incoming signal. Such tonotopic organization has been extremely useful in understanding the processing of pitch and has led to speculation that a tonotopic map aids the processing of timbre (Levitin, 2008, p. 43). The perception of frequency (and therefore the psychological effect of pitch) is the most researched area of musical cognition8 . Early research discovered pitch is actually mapped tonotopically within the brain with a line of neurones firing at the exact frequency that caused the eardrum to vibrate. This is a direct parallel to the function of the cochlea; hairs move in sympathy at and around the specific pitch of incoming sounds generating an

See the Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology chapter 5 (Hallam, 2008, pp. 47 - 58).

electrical signal. This arrangement and firing of a specific set of neurones within the auditory cortex explains why the range of our musical instruments only covers a quarter of what we can actually perceive; above 5 KHz, the neurones can no longer satisfactorily fire at a consistent rate thus leaving us with a less concrete sense of pitch. In fact, this issue goes further than this when the maximum firing rate of any one particular neurone is a 250 - 2 KHz (Gerasimov, 2006) therefore, above 2 KHz neurones have to function co-operatively in order to process pitch9 (Thompson, 2009, p. 115). This is possibly why humans prefer to hear sounds below 2 KHz in frequency (i.e. anything under the top octave of the piano) when listening to music and only use the higher frequencies for tumbrel and harmonic functions.

Figure 3: The range of piano and other instruments with the pitches above the processing limits of individual neurone indicated in Red. Pitches that approach the critical band indicated in blue. Adapted from (Blood, 2011).
9

This co-operation is also present within the cochlea; the limit is 1000 Hz (Thompson, 2009, p. 115).

There is also evidence to suggest that the bottom octaves of our musical instruments are infringing on a critical band that appears to limit the ability of pitch processing within the brain (Hodges, 2011, p. 112). This is the reason why close intervals (such as thirds and fourths) sound dissonant and murky ; the frequency difference is smaller than the ear can comfortably detect without the two notes interfering with one another. This is the same reason why in Bach chorales the bass and tenor parts are kept at least a fifth (although preferably more than an octave) apart. Only if the parts are significantly high (above D3) such as in the alto and soprano lines can the interval between them be extremely close on the stave. However, in terms of frequency they are not close due to the increase in the perception of pitch being on a logarithmic scale. The limit of the critical bandwidth has been calculated to be around 20 Hz because pitch intervals increase in a logarithmic pattern a lower third on the piano will be, in terms of actual frequency, closer to each other than the same interval higher up the piano. For example, the two intervals shown below as part of the Bach Chorale have a frequency difference of more than 20 Hz and are thus, for the sake of argument, consonant. However if we were to adjust beat three of the second bar of the extract and drop the tenor line down an octave so that the interval is between E2 a t 82.41 Hz and G2 at 98 Hz we would produce a frequency difference of 15.59 Hz. This is within the critical bandwidth limit and the tones would start to produce an interference pattern resulting in a sound perceived by the human auditory system as a roughness or dissonance .

Figure 4: Figure 7 the closing bars of Chorale 322. D3 = 146.83 Hz. F#3 = 185 Hz = 38.17 Hz. G4 = 392 Hz A4 = 440 Hz = 48 Hz.

Musical cognition employs a diverse set of cognitive mechanisms in order to accomplish the challenging task of auditory processing. The brain shows evidence of developing a unique form of biological clock (dubbed the interval clock) that uses three areas of the brain (basal ganglia, substantia nigra and the frontal lobes) in order to calculate the temporal points (and therefore rhythm) that music exploits (Jordain, 1997, p. 148). Other mechanisms such as the detection of tiny deviations in arrival time of a sound signal contribute to our perception of an objects position in the external environment. The brain must have developed a sufficiently frequent frame rate that is much larger than the frame rate required for visual detection that is around 60 Hz (Deering, 1998). The frame rate of the ear must be able to deal with deviations of less than 5 milliseconds or 200 Hz in order to build a spatial map of the surrounding environment (Hodges, 2011, p. 96). The theory that every part of the brain has its own unique function, otherwise known as the modulatory hypothesis is lacking in evidence (Honing, 2011, p. 41). The conclusions throughout this paper suggest that the brain is in fact organised in a resource-sharing hypothesis where cognitive mechanisms interfere and overlap with one another processing information in parallel and at different speeds. Substantial evidence for this conclusion originates from the experiences of synesthetic individuals10 who regularly experience interfering sensory modalities the second most common of which are auditory (after visual). The reason for the order may be down to cognitive priorities; consciousness is composed
10

For a general but reasonably comprehensive overview of synaesthesia see The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synaesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses by Jamie Ward (2010).

mostly of visual data (51%), then auditory (39%) (Norretranders, 1999, p. 143) followed by the other senses such as taste and small (that incidentally, are very often confused). This does not account for the fact that 55% of individuals, for reasons unknown, have vision as their dominant modularity with audition being the smallest at only 15% (Boothman, 2001, p. 119). We are therefore inclined to perceive events using visual cognitive mechanisms even when vision is not the sense we are employing in order to perceive the original stimulus. The cortex of the brain also splits into two sections or hemispheres that process certain types of neurological information more efficiently than the opposing hemisphere. These differences (outlined in the table below) are not always clear-cut and there is a huge range of variation between different individuals such as weather the individual is right or left handed11 . Left Hemisphere Right Hemisphere

Verbal Visuo-spatial Symbols Images Analytic Holistic Intellect Intuition Successive Simultaneous Serial Parallel Convergent Divergent Realistic Impulsive Rational Concrete Abstract Subjective Objective Metaphorical Realistic Table adapted from Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus (McManus, 2003, p. 243) The range of musical experiences and tasks are so eclectic and diverse (for example musical analysis would principally occupy the left side of the brain whereas free improvisation would occupy the right) that music is one of the most cognitively demanding activities. Musical processing has to straddle the two hemispheres, produce a cumulatively
11

For an in-depth discussion of the urban myth that has developed around this issue thanks to media hype among other things, see 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology by Scott O. Lillenfeld. (Lillenfeld, 2009, p. 25).

cooperative outcome depending on the skill. Music can also increase the communication between the opposing hemispheres (Levitin, 2008; Pochmursky, 2009). Music is a neurologically holistic practice and the brain is highly adapted for the perception, creation and recognition of musical features from a very young age because the perception of sound is so vital to the survival of the perceiving organism thanks to its consistently omnidirectional and long range properties (Rees, 2010, p. 1). Different auditory information is also separated according to a specific hemisphere with language principally processed in the left-brain (therefore perceived by the right ear) and music in the right (through the left ear). (McManus, 2003, p. 168) A neuroscientific explanation of musical illusions is therefore decades, if not centuries away. Due to the convoluted, complicated, and serendipitous manner of processing it is inherently difficult to draw precise conclusions at this time.

Music Psychology

Ruling out a neuroscientific explanation of musical illusions denotes the adoption of a more psychological perspective. Historically, the study of how the brain interprets music and other auditory stimulation has been very interdisciplinary with connections with such diverse fields as anthropology, physics, and biology. We are now in a unique position to collect this body of knowledge within the explicit field of music psychology and apply it not only in a therapeutic capacity such as curing tinnitus or diagnosing amusia but also to situations in the arts, entertainment, and engineering industries. There is now a blurred line as to what contributions can come from the study of music psychology. Recently, everything from analysing the way that a car door sounds when it is shut (Etienne, 2008) to ensuring that individuals feel comfortable when on the phone by playing music or even artificial static interference or comfort noise (Qian, 2006) has received a prominent standing from

academia and generous grants for further research. Accordingly, music psychology has become a respected discipline that takes a much broader and varied outlook than just what happens under laboratory listening conditions. At the outset of music psychological research there was a great emphasis on sine waves or pure tones leaving some important areas completely unresearched (Plomp, 2001, p. 2). This has interesting parallels with the research and application of musical illusions in that in order to apply the research effectively I will be attempting to apply research conducted using pure sine tones to sonically complex tones generated using instruments. The brain treats each type of tone differently as a complex tone is, in reality a fundamental pure tone accompanied by multiple other tones of varying intensity (loudness) and pitch contributing to the tumbrel quality of the tone. Jean Fourier (1768-1830) discovered that any periodic wave could be described as the sum of its individual sine waves, where each wave is described by its frequency , amplitude, and initial phase (Taube, 2004, p. 309). Essentially this means that what we wperceive as timbre is, in truth, just extra sine waves in the form of harmonics. Timbre is, at a basic level, a result of the cognitive grouping of overtones (Levitin, 2008, p. 43). A cathedral pipe organ functions in precisely this way, by adding more frequencies to the fundamental by opening and closing extra pipes (using stops) one can control the perception of the fundamental frequency and make it sound like bells (lots of indeterminate harmonics) or a clarinet (few harmonics, strong fundamental). The brain does not separate the overtones but integrates them into the sound perception. It is a phenomenal development that we are able to segregate sounds from separate sources, positions and timbres but overtones are usually largely indecipherable from the fundamental frequency. (Thompson, 2009, p. 48) This may explain why the musical illusions that Diana Deutsch has discovered are demonstrated as pure sine tones within

her research (Deutsch, 1995)12. Musical illusions are delicate entities, are prone to issues of correct perception, for this reason they require an almost experimental and controlled performance on instruments that produce timbres without many harmonics. One can find out such information by conducting a spectral analysis of a tone from any instrument for a given time. For instruments such, percussion, and drums the number of harmonics produced is chaotic and seemingly random. The sheer number of complex intervals within the harmonic series produces an almost indefinite sense of pitch. The generally short periods of percussion instruments (including the piano) means that most of the harmonics produced decay quickly. Whereas instruments such as the violin contain around nine audible harmonics and are therefore much more likely to cause auditory interference (Hodges, 2011, p. 87).
Figure 5: Fourier analysis of the piano note E4 showing overtones (harmonics) at 330, 990, 1320 and 1980 Hz. Extracted fron (Alm, 2002, p. 459).

A poor choice of instrument would be church bells that produce a much more chaotic spectral profile that has the overall effect of blurring the fundamental pitch:

12

Deutsch does however attempt to demonstrate their effects when performed with instruments, specifically bells but limits this to only illusion (track 20) (Deutsch D. , 2003).

Figure 6: Spectral analysis of Church Bells from (Oancea, 2011).

No. F/Hz Level

1 222 -18

2 438 0

3 520.5 -10

4 706.5 -17

5 783 -34

6 879 -9

7 1178 -16

6 1315 -13

9 1522 -23

10 1813 -9

11 2033 -26

12 2155 -28

13 3559 -29

Table 2: Breakdown of church bell analysis showing 13 (electronically) distinguishable harmonics most of whic h are not discrete notes adapted from (Oancea, 2011). The loudest overtone is an octave above the note we perceive.

The amazing data shown above demonstrates that the presence of the fundamental in complex tones is not vital for the missing fundamental to be perceived. This phenomenon of the missing fundamental has been observed and noted anecdotally by telephone engineers. They witnessed first-hand these paradoxical and bizarre facts years before it acquired academic interest due to their knowledge of the normal human range of speaking. This typically falls between 85 180 Hz for a male and 165 255 Hz for a female (Titze, 1994, p. 188) (Orlikoff & Baken, 2000, p. 177). Telephones operate however, on a frequency band between 300 and 3,400 Hz. When on the telephone our brain constructs the fundamental frequency from the overtone series of the speakers voice and creates an illusionary fundamental frequency at the accurate pitch of the original speaker. This has also been demonstrated empirically with musical tones on inexpensive speakers incapable of reproducing low sonorities. (Hodges, 2011, p. 116).

Auditory and Visual processing similarities and differences.

There are far fewer types of auditory illusions than there are types of visual illusion. The auditory system has a larger responsibility for the survival of the organism that perceives the auditory information; you can normally hear a potential threat before you can see it (Rees, 2010, p. 1). Consequently, there is a larger evolutionary bounty on the cognitive apparatus for the processing and correct function of auditory processes than that of the visual modularity from a purely evolutionary perspective. Researchers are beginning to discover that the perfect image that we perceive with our eyes is actually largely an illusion in itself. Only around fifteen degrees of our visual field is in focus at any one time resulting in the need for frequent saccades when reading (Dehaene, 2009, p. 13). Further evidence for this hypothesis originates from a developmental perspective; it takes our sophisticated visual cortex up to six months after birth to reach that of an adult in terms of depth perception, eye control, and experiencing vision in full colour. (Schwartz, 2004; Algoe, 2009). This is highly contrasted with the acoustical stimulation that a foetus perceives before birth. The foetus ear starts operating typically on the forty-fifth day of gestation with the cochlea beginning to process sounds at around twenty weeks. Reaching full adult size at twenty five weeks and beginning to process sound (but is unable to discriminate words and music or develop a sense spatial awareness) at around eighteen to twenty weeks thus giving it a distinct cognitive advantage over the other senses especially vision (Hallam, 2008, p. 220). Therefore, the modularity of auditory perception has more than a seven-month advantage on the eye despite all senses functioning fully before birth (Barenboim, 2006). The auditory information primarily consists of internal noises (breathing, heat beat and body movements) but the most prominent is the mothers voice (Richards DS, 1992) aided by strong conduction on account of direct bone conduction through the skull (Sohmer H, 2001). External auditory information is both more

diverse and carries much more information relative to corresponding senses at this time (Hallam, 2008, p. 221). At the other end of the life cycle, it has been hypothesised that hearing is the last sense that we lose awareness of (Sission, 1990). Hearing is therefore our most durable and accomplished method of perceiving the world around us and despite visions ability to blockade perception hearing is our most pervasive sense (Hodges, 2011, p. 109).
The ideas that underlie the basics of music psychology have not changed substantially over the last one hundred years13. Certainly new fields have been introduced (such as cognitive psychology and neuroscience) but the basis has remained the same. Most of the basic theories about musical perception came from research conducted in the much larger field of visual perception and Gestalt psychology 14. Gestalt psychologists established a number of rules that apply equally well to visual and auditory perception. Gestalt (literally whole) is concerned with finding the big picture of how the mind organizes smaller stimuli into larger perceptual experiences (Honing, 2011, p. 130). Examples from visual perception where the brain has to interpret the sensory information can be seen in infamous visual illusions such as the Necker cube, Devils tuning fork or the Penrose Triangle all of which exploit the brains ability to change its processing to accommodate multiple perspectives for the perception of a stimulus based on contradictory or paradoxical information15.

13

Most of the music psychology literature of the 20 th century was largely musical physics. One of the earliest books on music psychology is Genza Revezs 1946 book Introduction to the Psychology of Music through which he addresses mainly the physical and acoustical issues of music psychology. 14 For a comprehensive overview of modern visual perception theory, see The Vision Revolution by Mark Changizi. 15 More visual illusion explanations can be found at this wonderful website maintained by Prof. Michael Bach at www.michaelbach.de

Figure 7: The Devils Tuning Fork, Penrose Triangle, and Necker Cube respectively.

Other perceptual curiosities also exist in other senses that demonstrate that perceptual processes may be linked to one another from within the brain. Repeating the words say, say, say will lead to the perception of saying ace. Even illusions of touch can be demonstrated by the cutaneous rabbit effect whereupon a series of taps in three specific areas on the arm of a blindfolded participant feel like an equally spaced sequence of taps. (Blackmore, 2005, p. 39). These phenomena are the result of the brain building the illusion of consciousness from incomplete data. The mind (and thus ourselves) does not witness reality but rather creates it. The brain has become so proficient at creating our world that people in environments of sensory deprivation hallucinate and create vivid experiences simply because their brains have nothing to process and so they create their own perceptual experiences that keep their minds active (Butler, 1998, pp. 14 - 27). There are a number of laws that we can apply from the findings of Gestalt psychology to the findings on musical illusions and perception16. Proximity This law simply states that sound sources will be treated as the same source if they are in close proximity to one another. This proximity can be in any musical dimension as long as it is perceptible to a listener.
16

Similarity

The following list is an adaption of the chapter on Gestalt psychology in (Hodges, 2011, pp. 130 - 132).

Musical phrases that are similar in quality are more likely to be grouped together than dissimilar phrases. Common Direction Music that is moving in a common direction is more likely to be grouped together as a perceptual unit than music moving obliquely. Figure-ground Relationship This law states that when we perceive something we focus and enhance the features that stand out allowing other details to fade into the background of awareness. A tone, if sustained for significant duration (several minutes) would eventually regress into the background of consciousness if new, important information is perceived. Law of Prgnanz Patterns are organized in the simplest way possible. If an audience encounters an unfamiliar piece of music or sound they will impose order on it in a predictable manner. This applies to all aspects of music most notably meter perception. (Hodges, 2011, p. 130) Closure The perception of an ending (perfect cadence) at the conclusion of a musical phrase is cognitively appealing. In terms of melody, a return to the tonic functions using the same preferences.

Research on the topic of auditory and musical illusions is not particularly prevalent in current literature. Only a handful of chapters (within books related to broader topics such as perception) exist on how and why and how they function17 . This is in great contrast to the

17

See (Deutch 2003) for the most comprehensive treatment.

literature on visual illusions18 . Both types of illusion actually have frequent and reasonably strong connections to each other suggesting that they may be neurologically linked (Plomp, 2001, p. 43; Shepard, 1990, p. 147). The difference in academic interest might be attributable to the perceptual qualities of each type of illusion (Jordain, 1997, p. 140). Musical illusions are much more subjective and depend on specifics such as location and positioning, the type of environment the perceiver is currently situated around, and the type of listening device that they are using along with other such parameters that make them difficult to encounter in everyday experience; one cannot point to an auditory illusion. Visual illusions, on the other hand, do not have all these caveats and are therefore much more accessible, instant and thus observable than auditory illusions. The brain receives eleven million bits of data per second and only a tiny fraction of these (100,000, the same amount as for the sense of smell) are attributed to auditory perception the vast majority (10,000,000) are purely visual bits of information (Schmidt, 1989). Because of their elusive qualities, auditory illusions are also more personal and therefore more powerful for the individual experiencing them. An auditory illusion can take the mild reality checks that a visual illusion might provide to an entirely new level. One of the main aesthetic qualities of music is to saturate the mind of the perceiver (Jordain, 1997, p. xi). When an auditory illusion saturates the individuals sensory systems this can highly disconcerting; an individual can look away from a visual illusion whenever they choose to whereas an auditory illusion forces you into observing the phenomena without choice thereby providing a dramatic and memorable experience. As Daniel Barenboim states in his lecture The Neglected Sense we cannot shut our ears (Barenboim, 2006). Further evidence that the role of hearing is the underdog of perception can be witnessed by highlighting flaws that occur frequently in human vision. The depth of awareness that we commonly experience
18

See (Seckel, Al, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2010).

when visualising the world is in fact a complete illusion. We are only aware of a tiny fraction of visual information at any one time because of our forward facing eyes and small focus area on the back of the retina meaning that we perceive far less than we imagine. The brain creates our world for us from very limited information (Lawrie, 2012) but we have the illusion of a rich visual experience purely because we have never experienced any alternatives.

The Musical Applications of Psychological Research

I am not the first composer to consider using illusions in a musical composition. Artists such as Queen19 , Pink Floyd20 , Bjork21 , Wilco22 , and Gorillaz23 along with several film composers such as Hanz Zimmer and James Newton Howard24 . They have all used the Shepard tone illusion where a phrase seems to endlessly increase or decrease in pitch as part of their compositional output. Even classical composers such as J.S. Bach composed pieces exploiting the properties of musical illusions as can be seen in an endlessly rising canon from Canon a 2, per tonnes from Bachs Musical Offering (Hofstadter, 2000, p. 712). The technological developments of music along with discoveries in the field of psychology and neuroscience should allow musical illusions a larger role within musical works. The illusions themselves could begin to define the features of the work rather than be the quirky effects that they function as within current compositions. In the second half of this paper, I shall employ a specific set of illusions as the basis for two compositions and derive most of the material from the application of these illusions combining them with more traditional musical material to make a compelling musical-conceptual experience. Most of the musical illusions will look at exploit the auditory dimension of pitch. The range in pitch that humans can typically experience is roughly between 20 to 20,000 hertz (Backus, 1977) but this varies considerably with age and pervious musical experiences and even on the perceptual and conditioning effects of music (Deutsch D. , 1998, p. 236). Under

19

The album A Day at the Races (1976) contains two tracks, which include an ever-ascending scale. Tie your mother down and Teo Torriatte. 20 Echoes (1970). 21 The album Biophillia (2011) contains two tracks containing Shepard tones. Cosmogony (2011) features a descending choir whereas Mutual Core features an ascending effect. 22 Born Alone (2011). 23 Dare (2005) features a Shepard glissando. 24 The bat mobile engine sound is a Shepard tone that always ascends providing the perceiver with the experience that it is constantly accelerating (Jackson, 2008).

normal circumstances, our ears loose around one-half cycle per second per day from the moment we are born (around 160 cycles per second per year) (Jordain, 1997, p. 17). There is another way to experience pitch that is lower than twenty hertz (called infrasound) but this is through physical sensation and physiological effects rather than with the ears. The psychological effects of infrasound have been investigated (anecdotally) perhaps most notably by Vic Tandy who developed a reputation for debunking paranormal myths in the late 20th century when he experienced a ghostly apparition whist working in a research laboratory for a medical manufacturing firm. Tandy then experienced a ghostly apparition in

his peripheral vision that vanished when he turned to observe it properly. The experience was later attributed to imperceptible low frequency noise emanating from a recently installed extractor fan that activated the physiological fight or flight response, this generated tension, and unease and caused Vics eyes to vibrate in their sockets causing the ghostly apparition (Lyster, 2001). These infrasound vibrations have also provided an explanation for reports of the London underground being haunted with extremely high levels around areas that are frequently reported to bizarre experiences (Kane, 2006). Now the experimental data and methods have caught up with curious and routine phenomena, we are now in a position to attribute a whole host of physiological responses to sound and music in a variety of settings (Hallam, 2008, pp. 121- 130). Composers can use this information to benefit their compositions to make them more emotionally varied and effective. In order to ensure that the complete auditory experience is as strong as possible I will be controlling the visuals and the lighting conditions within the performance hall. Recent research suggests that when one of our sensory experiences is not being used we increase the perception of our other senses due to the lack of distraction from the sense that we have lost and are able to focus specifically on that particular sense

(Dachis, 2011). We do not receive any more information from the sensory deprivation but we are able to process the remaining senses more effectively. I wish to focus the audience on their auditory system and ensure that for the parts of the composition that require the most concentration that there are significantly few distractions that hav e the potential to lessen the overall effect. It is with this intention that I wish to be at the centre of the concert program; the audience will at this point be comfortable and reasonably oblivious to their surrounding environment after becoming habitualized to their enviroment over the course of the concert. Thus, their senses of taste, smell and touch senses will be in a state of comparative limbo. Removing vision from this allows them to focus their entire consciousness on their auditory perception allowing the illuions to have their greatest chance of impact. The training that I have received within composition has been of a classical nature. It is for this reason that I am limiting the type and function of musical illusions that I will use in this paper to those that can either be notated in a score and performed on acoustic instruments or achieved through the minimal use of music technology and samples. The power and range of possibilities that music technology offers to the composer today is a bewildering state of infinite possibility. Some of the illusions themselves dictate the type of equipment that should be used in order to perceive their correct effects such as the use of headphones on stereo field illusions . Because both of the works that I am writing will be performed in a concert setting, I will be focusing most of my explanations to the effects that work best through loudspeakers with the minimum of auditory processing and a reliance on the performance score. I have attempted to ensure that the stage and performance setting are established with the aim of developing the best approximation of the stereo pan of headphones by ensuring

that the speakers are facing the audience directly (orientated at 5 degrees towards the wall that is closest in proximity to each speaker. This ensures that there will be minimal spillage between the two and that the sound will reflect off the wall and into the respective ear more accurately. Acoustic instruments audiate in an omnipresent manner; they are therefore much more difficult to control in a live performance setting. Illusions of spatial setting will therefore feature only in the stereo recording and not through the acoustic instruments 25.

Applications in Compositional Practice

COLLATERAL (2012)
The first composition on the topic of cognition and psychology of music was based on some of these ideas. Collateral has been written for two pianos and the work attempted to mirror the functions and biases of the brain by translating the various features of both sides into performances on the piano. The right performer would encounter a lot of opportunities for improvisation whereas the left performer would perform the work verbatim to how I had composed it (see fig 1). I also included several musical illusions within the work at mapped them onto the opposing piano with the hope that the audience would process it with the correct side of the brain in order to achieve the complete effect and experience.

25

Although a small amount of stereo pan will still be attainable through the position of the quartet on the stage.

Figure 8: The same musical passage in different guises simulating 'right' and 'left' hemisphere characteristics.

Collateral was to be centred on the ideas of brain lateralisation so I chose to orchestrate for two identical instruments each being a representation of one hemisphere of the brain. Akin to a scientific experiment, I imposed controls on my composition by limiting the timbre and the location of the sound sources (grand pianos are not easy to relocaste). I can therefore now focus on the remaining attributes that form music: pitch, rhythm and volume. I shall also use this work to demonstrate the cognitive effects of harmony, melody and musical recognition. I specifically refer to three types of illusion within this work. All of these illusions are based on the cognitive property of stream segregation. In order to accommodate the technique generating illusions as musical material I had to look for an adventurous method of harmonizing the music in order to make the illusionary sections fit against the backdrop and blend in with more conventional musical material.

The Tritone Paradox

Originally discovered in 1986 (Deutsch D. , 1986), using computer generated tones, the tritone paradox displays a discrepancy of relative pitch. Certain intervals appear to ascend or descend depending on where they appear on the chord wheel.

One hypothesis of why this perception distribution exists may come from speech perception. Differences in perception have been found in test subjects who are not from California where this phenomenon has been examined. Frequently when a Californian subject heard a pattern as ascending, a subject from the south of England heard the identical pattern as descending, and vice versa (Deutsch D. , The tritone paradox: An influence of language on music perception, 1991) . Other studies have also provided further evidence of this language dependence for perception of the tritone paradox. But there are several complications as it appears that geographical area of childhood upbringing can affect the way that someone perceives the tritone paradox.

The Cambiata Illusion

This illusion exploits the brains ability of stream separation by providing two distinct streams of notes at a rapid tempo. The illusions effect and perception can be seen below.

As with the octave illusion, there are differing reactions to this effect with some people hearing the above and others hearing more complex derivatives such as the following:

For right handed individuals, the pattern seems to remain with the lower pitch stream seeming to originate from the left ear and the higher in the right. This may reflect the contralateral arrangement of the auditory pathway with stimulation from the left ear being processed by the right side of the brain and vice versa (McManus, 2003, p. 168). Left handed individuals are also more likely to experience the complex perceptions rather than the typical one that most right handed individuals experience. The possible reasons for this are not currently clear. (Deutsch D. , 2007) The brain separates auditory information along eight specific dimensions such as pitch, timbre, location and loudness of the sound. (Deutsch D. , 1998, pp. 313 - 321) In this instance the brain decides that because the pitch difference between the two notes is so large (two and a half octaves) the reality is most likely to be that there are two separate instruments and they are separated spatially with the high tone on the left and the low tone on the right. The reason for the differences in the perception by right and left handed individuals is not currently known and there is also no strong hypothesis for why the brain as a whole (apart from the sense of smell) is wired in a contralateral manner (Ratey, 2003, p. 64). This illusion is can also be used with a chromatic scale and give the listener the perception of two separate scales when they are in fact performed by the same instrument s.

The Chromatic Illusion

This illusion has the same mechanism as that of the Cambiata illusion in the previous section.

It functions as the result of gestalt proximity, similarity and simplicity and functions as the brain cannot handle this much complex information so a shortcut is taken providing and incorrect perception of reality (Jordain, 1997, p. 249).

ULTRA (2012)

My second composition is orchestrated for clarinet, string quartet, piano and laptop. I have chosen this instrumentation very deliberately with the intention of matching it to a specific outcome. For example I have used the clarinets and piano when using elements that require the use of purer tones and the string instruments (that have more complex overtone patterns) for the more musical elements. I have also experimented with the positioning of the instruments within the piece and focused on developing a depth of field effect with runs of notes across the ensemble and a heavy pan effect on the musical illusion at the end. The harmony of the work is derived from the Nicolas Slonimsky method of octave division through the interval of a tritone (Slonimsky, 1999). This interval has been shown to generate a strong cognitive response in western listeners and therefore deviates musical expectations overloading the sensory areas of the brain and consequently causing it to focus on other musical events (such as rhythm or the illusions) (Thompson, 2009, p. 50). This is a theme that runs throughout ULTRA with the last chord serving as both a lesson in the ridiculousness of concert etiquette and as a demonstration of musical and body language effects. The inclusion of electrical instruments within this piece also allows me to have exact control on the frequency of certain tones with the inclusion of electronic instruments as acoustic or analogue instruments, by their very nature never produce pure, unfaltering tones. I also involve the facility of speech perception within this composition. This allows me to tap into the most important feature of our brains the ability to communicate using words. The brain is remarkably adept at constructing sounds from distorted auditory data so much so that illusions can be created and words perceived where none exist simply by presenting and repeating a short fragment of a word in each ear over an extended duration. In order not to ensure that the central focus of the piece at this point is with the works I have kept the accompaniment to a minimum with a scarce texture of static chords moving in a stepwise motion. The auditory illusions develop over time and therefore it is extremely important that this section be the main focus of the work. The illusions works because our brain is rapidly

trying to make sense of the data that it is receiving. The brain recognises (due to timbre and other qualities) that the sounds that it is perceiving are supposed to be words and then fills in the gap according to expectation. The samples contain short sounds and since 67% of words in the English language are formed from such short sounds and consonants the brain has a wide selection guesses to enable it to force an interpretation. Further anecdotal evidence can be provided in the fact that the words often match what the listener is currently, or has been thinking about such as a diet or food. This is an example of priming and it offers further evidence that the brain is providing us with the experience that it expects us to perceive. Indeed sometimes is can seem that music and speech are linked in some description. Evidence of this can be seen at the start of ULTRA where the bass clarinet mimics the tones of a sentence spoken normally but because we have experienced it under musical terms we now perceive it as a musical phrase. It is often said that there is a link between music and language but it has only been stated a few times (most notably by Mussorgsky in a letter to Rimsky-Korsakoff) that music and speech are similar. Indeed, Mussorgsky believed that he could actually compose convocation whatever speech I hear, no matter who is speaking my brain immediately sets to working out a musical exposition for this speech. (Emerson, 1999, p. 75) There can therefore be seen to be a blurred line between speech and singing with speech taking on a musical quality when repeated. Recent research has also discovered that the brain processes speech faster than musical tones further suggesting that speech is now a fundamental attribute of our brains and providing further support for the modularity hypothesis suggested earlier. So at this point in the piece, the brain will focus more on the speech sounds than on the relatively uninteresting chordal accompaniment provided by the string quartet. Musical memory is also a strong feature of this composition where I attempt to induce a similar effect to a musical hallucination at the edge of the perception threshold. I chose two well known pieces of piano music (since I am performing this to an audience of musicians) that most of the audience are very likely to know (or very likely to have played) from their musical upbringings. The pieces (Claire De Lune by Debussy and Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven) are played in each ear

respectively overlapped with white noise. It has been found that masking a stimulus by placing wide frequency noise over it has the effect of accentuating the resulting perception as the DAP focuses on the interesting content and filters out the uninteresting white noise. In order to ensure that the perception of these pieces felt like an auditory illusion I ensured that the volume of the pieces from both speakers did not exceed 15db.

The Octave Illusion

This illusion appears in Collateral and features the two pianists performing an octave interval in an antiphonal manner. The intended perceptual effect of this illusion is that each piano each performs an Individual note at an explicit pitch. However, despite its relative simplici ty there have been many reported perceptual results of this illusion ranging from the simple instances (such as those above) to the complex

Explanations for this effect rely on the type of perceptual experience that the listener generates in their mind however this type of effect relies heavily on the stereo pan and therefore may not function too well on two pianos in a concert venue. What is more, the perception of this illusion, as do many others depend on whether the perceiver is right or left handed and the brain also appears to adapt the perception of tones if the listening apparatus are physically altered (i.e. turning the headphones onto the opposite ears) (Deutsch D. , 1974(a)) (Deutsch D. , 1974(b)). The primary reason for the effect of this illusion on our conscious experience of the sound is that all the sounds that we perceive are grouped by the brain into similar and dissimilar categories. This auditory grouping helps us to separate different sound sources and build a mental map of what is happening around us.

The Scale Illusion

The most fundamental and simple application of musical illusion can be seen in the scale illusion. The two pianos perform a set of notes that constitute parts of a scale. The brain perceives these as a set of serial tones from each sound source even if different instruments are used (Se e ULTRA) (Jordain, 1997, p. 248).

This illusion is an example of the three gestalt principals of similarity, proximity and common direction. The brain does not have the processing power in order for it to conclude that it is being deceived it therefore invents the same scenario that it has encountered many times before; a normal scale performed by two instruments or a four note pattern that ascends then decends.

Illusions and Speech Perception and the Mysterious melody

The opening of ULTRA contains within it a different type of illusion. Rather than create a paradox or interesting perceptual experience the simple sentence that appears at the start of Diana Deutschs Musical Illusions and Paradoxes CD exercises the blurred line between speaking and singing to demonstrate that the perceptual experience of each is not as mutually exclusive as some people believe (Deutsch, 1995, pp. 19-23).

Speech is constructed of long and short sounds (vowels and consonants). These vowels, by their very nature of being sustained require a pitch element. Combined with a reasonably strong sense of rhythm a simple sentence can begin to sound a lot like a musical phrase. Further paradoxes of speech are found on Phantom Words and Illusions where Deutsch separates words into syllables and pans each to the left and right respectively at four times per second (240 bpm). The brain cannot find any useful information from this data so it starts to invent it and perceive words that are not truly present. Further words can also be formed by combining the tracks from the audio CD as occurs in ULTRA due to toe timing restrains of a live performance. One particularly striking effect is that the words that people perceive can be primed by what they are thinking at the present time (Deutsch D. , 2003, p. 3).

The Quickening Pulse

There is a type of rhythmic illusion that I used in ULTRA that gave the impression of a quickening pulse when in reality the tempo remained completely static but this effect can only be realistically achieved through the application of music technology and sampling techniques. This effect was first created by Kenneth Knowlton and Jean-Claude Rissett by superimposing drum rhythms that have similar geometric relationships to one another (Pierce, 1983) (Risset, 1989). This effect is very similar to an effect that one can achieve with a set of closely relating pitches. Tones that are separated by one frequency cycle a second seem to pulsate as an interference pattern is created and they constructively and destructively interfere with each other. This beating effect is very pronounced with a difference of one hertz but increases in tempo and becomes less apparent with each increase in pitch until the two tones become separated after the critical band has been exceeded (Hodges, 2011). The illusions that I have referred to thus far have concerned only the dimension of pitch perception. Pitch perception is by far the most highly researched area in the entire field of music cogniti on. Here, I briefly demonstrate that illusions can also be created with rhythm but that our categorisation of rhythm is such that perceptual experiences are so varied that to call any rhythm illusionary seems bizarre (Thaut, 2005, p. 4). We experience musical illusions in most pieces of music the classic being the hemiola or polyrhythm that forces us to perceive separate rhythms when there is really only one complex rhythm. The perceptual mechanisms, for example stream segregation for detecting rhythm appear to be superior to pitch perception perhaps due to their evolutionary importance such that there are far fewer illusions that can be created. For example, practically everyone with even limited musical training can perceive and identify a hemiola with a 3:2 relationship. The brain separates

these immediately into two separate streams rather than combining them into one complex melody. As we have seen this is unlike pitch perception which can struggle to separate out multip le streams of information due to overtones, sensory overload or other cognitive phenomena.

The Shepard Tone

This illusion has a direct visual to the visual illusion generated by the rotation of a barbers pole. When the pole is spun it creates the illusion of the ribbon that is painted on the surface moving either horizontally or vertically. This precisely demonstrates the effect in terms of music but with pitches instead of a rhythm. This is potentially the most frequent musical device or illusion in compositional terms and it has been found in music spanning most of musical history from Bach (Hofstadter, 2000) to Muse 26. The illusion was first discovered by Robert Shepard at Bell Laboratory in 1958 where he attempted to build an illusion to accompany his version of the Esher impossible staircase . The illusion works best using computer generated sounds due to the lack of interfering overtones but there have been some versions using musical notation perhaps the most famous being the closing chapter from Douglas Hofstadters Godel, Esher, Bach using the computer program SMUT. (Hofstadter, 2000, p. 713). Shepard published his new illusion in a paper in 1964 (Shepard, 1964) demonstrating how this illusion an breakdown transivity in judgements of relative pitch simply by presenting the same notes over and over again with the peripheral parts modulated to procure a smooth transiti on.

26

Ruled by Secrecy 2003. 4:40 end.

Figure 9: The Shepard Tone Illusion from ULTRA. Adapted from (Hofstadter, 2000, p. 713)

Conclusions
It can be seen that there are a wide variety of useful applications of musical illusions and other research within the field of modern composition. Illusions in general also appear to use the same (or very similar) cognitive mechanisms in order to generate the conscious experience of perception. Consciousness is still a widely debated and controversial topic of significant interest and further research is required into the processes behind the conscious experience before we can comprehensively examine its flaws and quirks such as visual and auditory illusions.

Bibliography
Algoe, A. (2009, March). a. Retrieved March 18th, 2012, from Hub Pages: http://saraalgoe.hubpages.com/hub/What-Do-Babies-See Alm, J. F. (2002). Time-Frequency Analysis of Musical Instruments. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Review, Vol. 44, No.3, 457 - 476. Backus, J. (1977). The Acoustical Foundations of Music. USA: W.W. Norton & Co. Ball, P. (2010). The Music Instinct. London: The Bodley Head. Barenboim, D. (2006). The Neglected Sense. (BBC Radio 4) Retrieved 04 07, 2011, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gm37g Beament, J. (2003). How We Hear Music: The Relationship between Music and the Hearing Mechanism. London: Boydell Press. Benson, D. (2008). Music: A Mathematical Offering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blackmore, S. (2005). Consciousness: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blood, B. (2011, Jan 26th). Lesson 26. Retrieved 05 13, 2012, from Music theory online: http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory26.htm Boothman, N. (2001). How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less. London: Workman Publishing. Butler, G. &. (1998). Psychology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carey, J. (2002). Brain Facts: a Primer on the Brain And Nervous System. USA: Society for Neuroscience. Changizi, M. A. (2010). The Brain from 25,000 Feet: High Level Explorations of Brain Complexity, Perception, Induction and Vagueness. USA: Springer. Changizi, M. A. (2011). Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man. USA: BenBella Books. Cousins, R. e. (2007). The Contribution of Anthropometric Factors to Individual. Empirical Musicology Review, Vo. 2. No. 1, 1 - 13. Dachis, A. (2011). Why Closing Your Eyes (and Disabling Other Senses) Can Help You Remember. Lifehacker.com. Daurer, G. (2005). Auditory Illusions. USA: Daurer, Gerhard. Deering, M. F. (1998). The Limits of Human Vision. 2nd International Immersive Projection Technology Workshop. Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the Brain. USA: Viking.

Deutsch (Composer). (1995). Musical Illusions and Paradoxes. La Jolla, California, USA. Deutsch, D. (1974(a)). An auditory illusion. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 55, 518-519. Deutsch, D. (1974(b)). An auditory illusion. Nature, 251, 307-309. Deutsch, D. (1986). An auditory paradox. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America . Deutsch, D. (1991). The tritone paradox: An influence of language on music perception. Music Perception , 335-347. Deutsch, D. (1998). The Psychology of Music (2nd ed.). London: Academic Press. Deutsch, D. (Composer). (2003). Phantom Words, and Other Curiosities. La Jolla, California, USA. Deutsch, D. (2007). The glissando illusion and handedness. Neuropsychologia, 2981-2988. Emerson, C. (1999). The Life of Musorgsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Etienne, P. (2008). Analysis of cardoor closing sound quality. Applied Acoustics, 12 - 22. Gazzaniga, M. S. (2009). Cognitive neuroscience: the Biology of the Mind. London: W.W. Norton & Company. Gerasimov, V. (2006). Information Processing in the Human Body . Retrieved March 21, 2012, from www.vadim.oversigma.com: http://vadim.oversigma.com/MAS862/Project.html Gulick, L. G. (1989). Hearing: Physiological Acoustics, Neural Coding, And Psychoacoustics. USA: Oxford University Press. Hallam, S. (2008). Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodges (b), D. (2011, July). Music in the Human Experience. 'Interactive tutorials to accompany Music in the Human Experience'. USA: Routledge. Hodges, D. A. (2011). Music in the Human Experience. Oxon: Routledge. Hofstadter, D. R. (2000). Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. USA: Penguin. Honing, H. (2011). Musical Cognition: A Science of Listening. USA: Transaction Publishers. Jordain, R. (1997). Music, the brain and Ecstasy. USA: Quill/HarperCollins. Kane, J. (Director). (2006). Ghosts of the Underground [Motion Picture]. Koelsch, S. (2012). Brain and Music. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Lawrie, B. (Director). (2012). Out of Control? [Motion Picture]. Levitin, D. J. (2008). This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession. London: Atlantic Books.

Liberati A. et al. (2009). Sensory stimulation for brain injured individuals in coma or. The Cochrane Library, 6. Lillenfeld, O. S. (2009). 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior. UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Lyster, S. (2001, Feburary 12). Inventor hopes device will give up the ghost. Birmingham Post & Mail . Matthews, R. (1998, June 29). Science finds reasons for ghostly 'hauntings': Ultra-low sound waves blamed for visions, feelings of terror. Ottawa Citizen . McManus, C. (2003). Left Hand, Right Hand. London: Phoenix. Meller, A. R. (2000). Hearing: its physiology and pantophysiology. London: Academic Press. Mithen, S. (2007). The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body. USA: Harvard University Press. Norretranders, T. (1991). The User Illusion. USA: Penguin Books. Norretranders, T. (1999). The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. USA: Penguin Books Ltd. Oancea, C. E. (2011, December). COMPLEX ANALYSIS OF THE BELLS SOUNDS FROM THE SAINT TRINITY' CATHEDRAL FROM ALBA IULIA. European Journal of Science and Theology, Vol.7, No. 4, 103-119. Orlikoff , R. F., & Baken, R. (2000). Clinical Measurement of Speech and Voice. USA: Singular Publishing Group Inc. Owen, A. M. (2010). Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders. The new england journal of medicine, 1 - 11. Peretez, I. (2003). The cognitive neuroscience of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peretz, I. &. (2003, July). Modularity of Music Processing. Nature Neuroscience, Vol 6. No.7, 688 691. Pierce, J. R. (1983). The Science of Musical Sound. New York: Freeman. Pink, D. H. (2008). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. London: Marshall Cavendish. Plomp, R. (2001). The Intelligent Ear: On the Nature of Sound Perception. USA: Psychology Press. Dylyn, V. (Producer), & Pochmursky, C. (Director). (2009). The Musical Brain [Motion Picture]. Qian, Y. (2006). Classified Comfort Noise Generation for Efficient Voice Transmission. Interspeech, 225 - 228.

Ramachandran, V. a. (2003). The Phenomenology of Synaesthesia. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 49-57. Ratey, J. (2003). A User's Guide to the Brain. London: Abacus. Rees, A. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science (vol. 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richards DS, F. B. (1992). Sound levels in the human uterus. Obstet Gynecol., 186 - 90. Risset, J. C. (1989). Paradoxical Sounds. Current Directions in Computer Music Research , 149-158. Robinson, S. (Director). (2011). Do you see what I see? [Motion Picture]. Ross, A. (2009). The Rest Is Noise. USA: Harper Perennial. Sacks, O. (2011). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. London: Picador. Walker, D. (Producer), & Walker, D. (Director). (2009). The Secret You [Motion Picture]. BBC (Horizon). Schmidt, R. F. (1989). Human physiology. USA: Springer-Verlag. Schwartz, S. H. (2004). Visual Perception: A Clinial Orientation. USA: McGraw-Hill Medical. Shepard, R. N. (1964). Circularity in Judgement of Relative Pitch. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 36. No. 12, 2346 -2353. Shepard, R. N. (1990). Mind Sights: Original Visual Illusions, Ambiguities, and Other Anomalies. USA: Palgrave Macmillan. Sission, R. (1990). Effects of auditory stimuli on comatose patients. Heart Lung, 19, 373-8. Slonimsky, N. (1999). Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. London: Music Sales Ltd. Sohmer H, P. R.-Y. (2001). The pathway enabling external sounds to reach and excite the fetal inner ear. Audiol Neurootol. , 109-116. Taube, H. K. (2004). Notes from the Metalevel. Routledge. Thaut, M. H. (2005). Rhythm, Music and the Brain. London: Routledge. Thompson, W. F. (2009). Music, Thought and Feeling. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Titze, I. R. (1994). Principles of Voice Production. USA: Allyn & Bacon. Toga, A. W. (2000). Brain Mapping: The Systems. USA: Academic Press Inc. Walsh, V. (2012). The Performing Brain. A Moving Story: An interactive evening of Neuroscience in motion. London: University College London. Ward, J. (2008). The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses. London: Routledge.

Weber, G. (1997, 2008). The World's 10 most influential Languages. Language Today, Vol. 3, 12 - 18.