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P Toiviainen

Publications and source records attributed to P Toiviainen.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Tonal cognition.

This article presents a self-organizing map (SOM) neural network model of tonality based on experimentally quantified tonal hierarchies. A toroidal representation of key distances is recovered in which keys are located near their neighbors on the circle of fifths, and both parallel and relative major/minor key pairs are proximal. The map is used to represent dynamic changes in the sense of key as cues to key become more or less clear and modulations occur. Two models, one using tone distributions and the other using tone transitions, are proposed for key-finding. The tone transition model takes both pitch and temporal distance between tones into account. Both models produce results highly comparable to those of musically trained listeners, who performed a probe tone task for ten nine-chord sequences. A distributed mapping of tonality is used to visualize activation patterns that change over time. The location and spread of this activation pattern is similar for experimental results and the key-finding model.

Cognition↗

Cross-cultural music cognition: cognitive methodology applied to North Sami yoiks.

This article is a study of melodic expectancy in North Sami yoiks, a style of music quite distinct from Western tonal music. Three different approaches were taken. The first approach was a statistical style analysis of tones in a representative corpus of 18 yoiks. The analysis determined the relative frequencies of tone onsets and two- and three-tone transitions. It also identified style characteristics, such as pentatonic orientation, the presence of two reference pitches, the frequency of large consonant intervals, and a relatively large set of possible melodic continuations. The second approach was a behavioral experiment in which listeners made judgments about melodic continuations. Three groups of listeners participated. One group was from the Sami culture, the second group consisted of Finnish music students who had learned some yoiks, and the third group consisted of Western musicians unfamiliar with yoiks. Expertise was associated with stronger veridical expectations (for the correct next tone) than schematic expectations (based on general style characteristics). Familiarity with the particular yoiks was found to compensate for lack of experience with the musical culture. The third approach simulated melodic expectancy with neural network models of the self-organizing map (SOM) type (Kohonen, T. (1997). Self-organizing maps (2nd ed.). Berlin: Springer). One model was trained on the excerpts of yoiks used in the behavioral experiment including the correct continuation tone, while another was trained with a set of Finnish folk songs and Lutheran hymns. The convergence of the three approaches showed that both listeners and the SOM model are influenced by the statistical distributions of tones and tone sequences. The listeners and SOM models also provided evidence supporting a core set of psychological principles underlying melody formation whose relative weights appear to differ across musical styles.

Adult↗