MW: 2:00-3:20 Science Center A331 Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, Good music is very close to primitive language. | ||||||||
| Course Overview: Over the last 20 years the psychological study of music has matured from a sporadic enterprise into a continuous and connected discipline. Despite the rapid growth of interest in music psychology, few psychology departments offer a course that integrates the field. This course will do just this. In the first part of the course, we will explore how psychologists have attempted to understand the basic elements of music. We will discuss the psychological organization of pitch and rhythm, in isolation, and then in combination. We will also examine how musical knowledge is acquired through development. Thus, the early part of the course we will attempt to understand musical behavior by breaking it down into its constituent components. One drawback to this approach is that music loses much of its richness when analyzed piecemeal. Therefore, the remainder of the course will attempt to analyze behavior surrounding intact musical pieces. We will begin by examining one of the most powerful effects of music: its ability to move us emotionally. This discussion will be followed by an attempt to isolate the factors that lead people to prefer one piece or genre of music to another. In the last part of the course, we will explore music cognition outside of the laboratory. We will look at how other media (television, movies, and commercials) employ music. We will also look at music as a mnemonic device including how it contributes to our memory for song lyrics. We will discuss how music therapists use music in the treatment of a variety of mental and physical disorders and will end the semester by looking at music from a cross-cultural perspective. Every known human culture engages in some kind of music-making activity. We will try to examine which aspects of musical behavior are universal, and how Eastern and Western musical systems differ. | ||||||||
| Readings: You will be responsible for a handful of reading assignments each week. All weekly readings are available electronically via the (Moodle) web page. Everyone should read the articles critically. By this, I mean you should not necessarily accept the authors' claims at face value. Are their hypotheses warranted? Do they do a good job of setting up an experiment to test their hypotheses? Are their interpretations of the data justified? Can some other theory also explain the results? How might you improve the experiment? What is the next experiment that should be done to further test the theory in question? It will probably be helpful for you to take some notes to help you participate in class discussions. I've provided you with what It think is a helpful template for that purpose. | ||||||||
| Thought Papers: In addition to the weekly readings, you will also be responsible for turning in a written response to the week's readings. You should use this paper as an opportunity to demonstrate your critical reading of the assignments (see above). Do not summarize the papers! Tell me what you think! What were the strong and weak points of the paper? What aspects of the argument/design need clarification? How might you counter the arguments/conclusions made by the author(s)? Do the data support the claims made by the researchers? Why or why not? What might you have done differently? What would be the next important question/experiment to pursue? Thought papers should vary between a paragraph and a page in length: NO MORE! If you have more to say, you can hold it for class, just give us the flavor of your thoughts. To give you a little helping hand, I've compiled a list of 'prompts' that you can use to help you complete this weekly assignment. Notice that I used the word 'us' in the last paragraph. Everybody in the class will be responsible for reading all of the thought papers for the week. How will you get access to everyone's thought papers? I will set up a Google Form to collect and display your weekly Thought Papers. Your thought papers will be due by 9:00 PM on Sunday night. Late papers will receive a grade of 5 out of 10; failure to turn in an assignment will result in a 0. | ||||||||
| Class Participation: A seminar is only as good as its participants and the contributions made by those participants. At the end of the semester, your peers and I will grade the quality of your contributions to class. Your peers will use whatever criteria they deem meaningful. I will grade your performance based on the frequency, creativity, and scientific relevance of your input. | ||||||||
Course Grade: Your course grade will be determined, as follows:
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| Term Project: In this class, we will read a lot about other people’s scientific work. For your term project, I would like to give you the opportunity to explore a question of your choosing. As you can see from the course schedule, we will work on this project bit-by-bit as the semester unfolds. First, we will selet a question. Then, we will do some background research related to that question. Next, you will identify a research question; that is, you will identify some tension or unanswered question in the literature. Finally, you will propose a way to resolve that tension or unanswered question. . At the end of the ou will present your experiment/literature review to the rest of the class during the last two weeks of the semester. You will also write an APA-style report of your final project. It seems like a big undertaking, and it is, but we will walk through step-by-step, week-by-week throughout the semester; click here for more information about how the project will be completed across the semester. We will also probably have occasion to meet outside of class to make sure your project remains on track. Your final paper will be due during Finals period (check the course schedule). | ||||||||
Accomodations: If you have a documented disability that requires accommodations, you will need to register with Accessibility Services for coordination of your academic accommodations. You can reach them via email at accessibility@amherst.edu, or via phone at 413-542-2337. Once you have your accommodations in place, I will be glad to meet with you privately during my office hours or at another agreed upon time to discuss the best implementation of your accommodations. | ||||||||
| Audio/Video Recording: You may not record ANY part of this course in any way for any purpose without written consent of the professor. Recording any part of this course without the consent of the professor is a violation of Massachusetts law. |