My Master thesis (also available here) has been accepted, thankfully, despite my supervisor noticing typos hours before the final version was due. If anyone is curious, feel free to take a look. Some sections are expected to be adapting for future publications (at least one currently in the works) while others open the door for new directions of research into how we experience music, second-by-second.

Title:

Quantifying the temporal dynamics of music listening: A critical investigation of analysis techniques for collections of continuous responses to music

Abstract:

Continuous response measurement offers a data-rich trace of a listener’s experiences of music in time. Listeners’ responses are most often studied in collections—each a set of time series of the same response measure to the same stimulus from multiple listenings. Inter-response variability and the challenges of time series analysis complicate the interpretation of these collections. This thesis describes traditional and novel methods of analyzing collections of continuous responses to music with the goal of identifying what information can be found in these collections before trying to establish possible relationships to the features of the stimulating music. Besides mathematical investigations of these analysis meth- ods, their potential outcomes are assessed by applying each to forty experimental collections of continuous rating responses and four artificial collections of unrelated continuous rating responses. The traditional analyses studied include the average response time series and Pearson correlations between continuous responses as a measure of response reliability. The chapter on novel techniques introduces activity analysis and coordination tests, evaluates measures of the relative significance of time points in these collection, and applies cluster analysis in search of distinct patterns of response to the same stimuli. The results of these analyses suggest that though music does not provoke the same continuous response from all listeners, musical works can induce distinct and repeatable listening experiences which are measurable in collections of continuous responses.

In the midst of writing my thesis, the Continuous Response Analysis Wiki grew from one idea into a few other things. The wiki was meant to be a collaborative gathering of techniques used to make sense of continuous responses to music (data collected from people listening to music continuously, like ratings or skin conductance or the like). With more time, the analysis pages should grow in number and detail. At present, this wiki is first and formost a database of articles on continuous responses to music, described so as to facilitate finding related research in this subfield that somehow gets published in at least 20 different journals.

To help explore this list of article, associated data sets, and corresponding definitions of continuous response measures and analysis techniques, the wiki uses Semantic MediaWiki, an extension of the MediaWiki base for linking and searching semantic content. Users can search for data sets making use of “Tension” ratings, for example, because continuous measures are properties tagged automatically when users input information using the specially made forms.

I hope I have time to keep developing the wiki, and that others jump in a contribute as well. If it remains an article database, that is still useful for students and researchers looking to know what has been asked and measured in previous experiments. And if it grows into an encyclepedia of techniques that are described in useful terms for researchers at different levels of numerical experience, it can only improve the quality research in the future.

When I have something to say, people usually listen. This isn’t by right or reason: I owe a lot of speaking time to culture privilege, opportunity, and an excess of initiative. I was a teenager when I first noticed how readily my words were accepted as authoritative. After enough instances of others being lead astray by taking my impressions as fact, I realised that I needed to be clear about what I knew and what I “figured”. That was followed by an awkward period of sentences saturated (and often burst) by qualifying phrases.

With experience, I’ve worked out better ways of keeping my claims in check but under the interrogation lamp, I would have to admit that I get credited with knowing more than that for which I can provide references. Of course, people rarely ask and that is what has me worried. I’m not out there making stuff up all the time or lying to peoples’ faces; there is usually some reasoning to fall back on. But still, why is it that I am rarely questioned (directly) when my words try to invite scepticism?

A prof gave me a clue following a presentation for which I was underprepared. He suggested that he trusted my research because I confidently voiced claims about what other people thought. Pretending to know the minds of others is a dangerous game, but it’s one I can’t stop playing. For all that I can pass as logical math girl, most of my analytical experience comes from trying to understand people and how they interact. This means a lot of my cognitive metaphors for strength of argument or association include a human face, posture or tone of voice. A new fact has a much better chance at staying in my head if I can append an impression of how people feel about it, and when I am explaining something on the fly, I often share both kinds of information.

Lucky for me, a lot of people like a sprinkling of emotional references on top of an otherwise dry discussion of time series. Humans, as a species, seem to remember socially-weighted data preferentially. Using a power-dynamics metaphor in  a presentation is not a bad things, nor is mentioning the humanity of those who generated the relevant information. Instead, the danger lies in the accuracy of these potentially subjective details and the authority it may bring to the speaker. I may be quick to read inter-human dynamics in research papers, but facility does not ensure accuracy (who hasn’t gone from fuming indignation to sheepishly agreement on a second reading? ) And if listeners are more trusting of socially charged statements, taking it to be a sign of intimacy with the topic, this may prevent proper scrutiny of ideas being shared.

I’m not inclined to desiccate my speech of feeling; it would probably be more painful than my accuracy binge of the late nineties. Nor am I likely to stop thinking in social terms. I guess the best I can do is take some more care with the statements exiting my mouth and stay conscious of how they reflect on me as well as the subject. Honestly, I don’t want any extra authority; I’ve got more than my fair share of speaking rights as is.

Every once and a while (OK, whenever I have a crushing pile of reading and/or writing to do) the question of my potential reading disability comes to mind. Besides the time and money commitement to get tested, I am still not convinced I should. What would a diagnosis mean besides an trim little label to explain some of my oddities? Do I need a label? What if I don’t even qualify? In these busy times, the effort and the uncertainty undermine curiousity and other intentions.

Despite not getting tested, I keep a mental list of all the reasons I think I might be diagnosable. Some of them are fun, like being able to read backwards and upside down and understand knots, others less so, like regularly misspelling common words (I hate adverbs and vowels and english). Today I noticed another reason for my love of taking notes on construction paper. Usually I attribute this habit to the haptics of ball point on loosely packed fibers, but using non-white paper is a common trick to help (some) dyslexics read printed instructions, and it’s true that I have preferences for some colours over others.

The trouble now is the same as the trouble back in high school, when my guidance councillor refused to consider having me tested for learning disabilities. If I do have some kind of documentable “abnormality”, it hasn’t been holding me back enough to make many people worry. Maybe I have to struggle more with some things but other stuff is a breeze; everyone has their challenges so why should mine get special accommodations? When my motivation is high, I do read and write, enough to get me through nine years of post secondary education and counting, so I really shouldn’t complain.

For all that I don’t know if it’s actually a legitimate label, I have sometimes used dyslexia as an excuse. At least I include the caveat of “untested” before a slew of reasons why I interpret some problem to be connected to my apparent sequential processing deficiency. I remember my panic before my last musicianship exam, when I still couldn’t reliably differentiate melodic whole steps and half steps within key. At that point, it was hard to tell whether the problem was my brain or just a lack of practice, though having gotten through musicianship 1 through 5 without solving the issue suggests something fishy. My teacher listened to my fears and suspicions, nodded sympathetically, and in the end I did OK, so that wave of worry passed too.

Maybe I’ll find some convincing arguments about getting tested online somewhere, but really, I should just get back to my readings and finish pulling together references for Thursday’s presentation. Looks like this is being put off yet again for the next season of overwhelming work.

If academia were to collapse one day, my satisfaction in life would turn more fully to making food. I love eating, don’t get me wrong, but making is where the fun is had. I might also fix bikes on the side for as long as pavement was also viable.

I feel better having a contingency plan, in case of revolution.