Music and cognitive psychology: Form-bearing elements

Abstract

Contemporary music offers cognitive psychology models that establish relevant and computable features for a theoretical field which had remained unspecified up to now. Cognitive psychology outlines a theory of the relations between memory and perception for which music functions as a test of effectiveness and coherence. The relationship of cognitive psychology to contemporary music is that of a theory to its models. Music composition offers new ways of thinking which extend the range of hypothetical constructions and offer proof of the fecundity of analogy. Cognitive psychology produces original theories which lend new insight into perceptual mechanisms and challenge the very foundations on which music is based.

KEY WORDS:

• Categorization
• imprints
• pitch
• memory
• timbre
• source
• texture