The Influence of Expertise and Context on the Categorization of Music: A Cognitive Science Study
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Date
1995
Authors
Imhoff, James S.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Recent developments in Cognitive Science have
demonstrated that, contrary to traditional thinking,
categories are not rigid, feature-defined phenomena. Rather ,
they are influenced by human experience and by the context in
which the categorization takes place. The labels people use
to describe music reflect the way they categorize it. In
this study, 32 music experts and 32 novices labeled short
selections of recorded music . In each group, 16 subjects
heard all Western Art selections (Context 1) , and 16 heard a
mixture of Rock, Blues, Jazz , and Western Art music (Context
2). All subjects used style terms (Classical, Renaissance,
Baroque) as labels significantly more often than genre,
instrument, or national origin. The results indicate that
experts used more specific labels than novices, but context
did not have a significant influence on the kinds of labels used by either group. This implies that musical categories
are more stable than suggested by the current Cognitive
Science literature.
Description
189 pages
Keywords
Psychological aspects of music, Musical styles