Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound: An Introduction to Psychoacoustics

(Paperback)

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Description

How hearing works and how the brain processes sounds entering the ear to provide the listener with useful information are of great interest to psychologists, cognitive scientists, and musicians. However, while a number of books have concentrated on individual aspects of this field, known as psychoacoustics, there has been no comprehensive introductory coverage of the multiple topics encompassed under the term. Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound is the first book to provide that coverage. The book begins with introductory chapters on the basic physiology and functions of the ear and auditory sections of the brain, then proceeds to discuss numerous topics associated with the study of psychoacoustics, including cognitive psychology and the physics of sound. The book has a particular emphasis on music and computerized sound. An accompanying CD-ROM includes many sound examples to help explicate the text.

Reviews

"The book can be highly recommended for instructors who are teaching a course on musical acoustics or music perception. The book contains a number of insightful observations, especially on scales, tonality, and the pitches of complex tones. The chapters on the human voice, memory, and haptics by the junior authors seemed particularly fresh and interesting." - William M. Hartmann, Music Perception"

Author Bio

Perry R. Cook is Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, with a joint appointment in Music.