The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #58162 Message #930343
Posted By: Wolfgang
10-Apr-03 - 08:27 AM
Thread Name: Neuro-physiology and music structures
Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures
Wilco, what you are at that is (I translate a German expression for it fits in this thread:) music of the future. (1) Neuroimaging of human brain activity at this time is either very precise in location and therefore very unprecise in time (which isn't a good start especially for music) or very precise in time and at the same time very unprecise in location. (2) The neurophysiologists start now with imagining the processing of very simple things. More complex things like music tend to be less localised than simple things. And if large parts of the brain are active over a period of time and you only can integrate over time you get not very telling pictures. (3) Images that are precise both in time and location can be made but they need intrusive methods and therefore, for ethical reasons, are only made in animals. We do not mind comparing animal visual perception of simple objects or animal perception of simple noises with that of humans but somehow animals are not considered a very good study object for music perception (and other more complex perceptions).
I guess in twenty years there are more responses but what you write sounds more like a longtime research program than like readily answerable questions. But I alsways enjoy interesting speculations.