Categoric perception

Hi.

I would like to have a bibliography about what I would call "categoric perception" of sounds.
Most musicians have just twelve categories for intervals where any couple of notes can stay. Something similar happens with colors: people normally have 10 or 15 words for them. Things outside these categories are described with a variation: a "dark yellow" or a "lowered fifth".
Is this categoric perception a cultural characteristic or is it innate?

Some studies on the "neanderthal flute" seems to prove that neanderthal man played a flute based on something like a diatonic tetrachord; in this sense we are not so far from him... I would say that, to *describe* the colors of a black and white picture, we just need three categories: "black", "white" and "gray" with the addition of "bright" and "dark"... Is this just a cultural habit? Do we need to create new words for any particular kind of gray? I'm not sure. Maybe people which plays outside conventional tuning systems tend to think in this manner: "a major third", "a minor third", "something in the middle"... That's all. I think this is also a bluesman thought.

Using intellect we can go deeper developing ways, instruments and words to describe everything scientifically (apperception?) but maybe our instinctive perception would always remains in a simplified reality.

Lorenzo

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Lorenzo Frizzera"
<lorenzo.frizzera@c...> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I would like to have a bibliography about what I would
call "categoric perception" of sounds.
> Most musicians have just twelve categories for intervals where any
couple of notes can stay. Something similar happens with colors:
people normally have 10 or 15 words for them.

There are many cultures with far fewer color-words: look about 9/10
of the way down this page:

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color3.html

> Things outside these categories are described with a variation:
a "dark yellow" or a "lowered fifth".
> Is this categoric perception a cultural characteristic or is it
>innate?

If you're asking about musical intervals, the number of categories is
definitely a cultural characteristic. There is a lot of published
psychological research on this in the musical realm; I don't have any
references handy but I used to sit in the library poring over this
stuff. In fact, over a few intense weeks it's possible to re-train a
subject's categorical interval classifications. Spend a few weeks
with a very unfamiliar tuning system and I guarantee you'll suprise
yourself not only with how differently you come to hear the new
tuning system, but how differently you hear 12-equal when you first
go back to it. Nothing substitutes for real experience in this area.

Hi Lorenzo,

You wrote:
> I would like to have a bibliography about what I would
> call "categoric perception" of sounds.
> Most musicians have just twelve categories for intervals
> where any couple of notes can stay. Something similar
> happens with colors: people normally have 10 or 15 words
> for them. Things outside these categories are described
> with a variation: a "dark yellow" or a "lowered fifth".
> Is this categoric perception a cultural characteristic or
> is it innate?

I'd say, very definitely, cultural. Our cultures, more
specifically our languages, provide most of our categories.
Many languages had no need for the category "orange", so
never had a word for it. Asked to describe the colour of
some seen object, witnesses reply in terms of the colour
categories they are used to; there's even evidence that
they remember the category rather than the raw percept.

So a witness whose language contains no word for "orange"
will describe an orange as being either "yellow" or "red",
depending on the categories his language provides.

Some things are innate - the ability to perceive the whole
of the visible colour spectrum is innate to most humans,
but not all. The physical capacity for speech is innate, but
the mental capacity is a product of environment - it has to
be learned. Feral children don't learn human speech unless
they are acculturated early enough.

> Some studies on the "neanderthal flute" seems to prove
> that neanderthal man played a flute based on something
> like a diatonic tetrachord; in this sense we are not so far
> from him... I would say that, to *describe* the colors of
> a black and white picture, we just need three categories:
> "black", "white" and "gray" with the addition of "bright"
> and "dark"... Is this just a cultural habit? Do we need to
> create new words for any particular kind of gray? I'm
> not sure.

Of this I'm sure! :-) When you take your heavy rice-paper
and your black ink, to start learning the Japanese art of
sumi-e, one of the first things you learn is that mastery
includes the ability to paint in _seven_ distinct tones
between white and black - just by varying the amount of
water you use with the ink. In English, we only commonly
distinguish (medium) grey, light grey and dark grey. To
discuss the different tones with my sumi-e teacher, we
needed names, so I spoke of "the palest grey", "the lighter
medium grey" and so on. In the end, I started using numbers
instead. So "Do we need to create new words for any
particular kind of gray?" has a clear answer for me - "Yes,
whenever our circumstances require convenient labels for
them; otherwise, no."

> Maybe people which plays outside conventional tuning
> systems tend to think in this manner: "a major third",
> "a minor third", "something in the middle"... That's all.
> I think this is also a bluesman thought.

Sometimes, while pushing notes around, you tend to think
instead of how far you've pushed them - more a number on
a (continuous) scale than a category.

> Using intellect we can go deeper developing ways,
> instruments and words to describe everything scientifically
> (apperception?) but maybe our instinctive perception would
> always remains in a simplified reality.
>
> Lorenzo

We can only clearly label those things we can clearly
perceive, recall or imagine. Otherwise the label has no
referent. I don't believe we have a great deal of access
to our "instinctive perception", particularly after infancy,
when most of our perceptions are mediated through
language.

Regards,
Yahya

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.5/58 - Release Date: 25/7/05