Simplicity and complexity in music and cognition

Author: Dowling, W.¹

Source: Contemporary Music Review, Volume 4, Number 1, 1989 , pp. 247-253(7)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

There are three areas that have been touched upon in this conference about which I will comment. First, there is the issue of what I have come to call the “skimpiness” of stimuli in many experimental studies of music cognition. Second, there is the issue of whether there are cognitive universals constraining musical understanding and structure, and if there are, what we should make of them. Third, I take up the nature of mental representations involved in music cognition, suggesting that a considerable amount of the knowledge that guides listening and provides an interpretation of what we hear is implicit and procedural, rather than explicit and declarative.

Keywords: Cognitive universals; stimulus complexity; procedural knowledge; explicit vs. implicit cognition; pitch perception; mental representations

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/07494468900640331

Affiliations: 1: Program in Human Development & Communication Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

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