MARCS Research Meeting - 20 Apr 2021

Join us at the next MRM with invited speakers PhD candidates Siyao Cheng and Eylem Altuntas to present their Confirmation of Candidature presentations.

Topic: A comparison of different music notations: novices’ interpretations, learning outcomes and chunkings.

Speaker: Siyao Cheng, PhD Candidate

Music notation uses images, symbols or codes to represent musical sounds and instructions for performance (Bouchard & Browne, 2019). Fluent music reading is crucial for musicians to expose themselves to a wide range of music pieces and activities. However, of those who commence formal music study, relatively few master music reading at a satisfactory level (Gudmundsdottir, 2010). It has been suggested that failure to acquire music-reading fluency holds back countless music students and may be a major cause for drop out of music study (Allen, 1982; McPherson, 2005; Rostvall & West, 2003). To improve learning and teaching strategies in music reading, three main aspects will be addressed in different music notation systems in the present PhD project: quantifications of notation cognition (iconicity, discriminability, and complexity);  learning outcomes (their recognisability and performability); strategies for facilitating chunking.

Topic: Infant-Directed Speech to Infants and Amodal Speech Perception by Infants: A Possible Relationship?

Speaker: Eylem Altuntas, PhD Candidate    

Evidence that comes from 30-year-old Dutch speakers who were adopted at 3-5 months of age from Korea suggests that infants acquire and retain phonologically abstract knowledge before 3 months of age, i.e., before perceptual attunement. In this talk, Eylem will outline her doctoral project that will investigate the origins of this abstract knowledge directly longitudinally in young infants at 3, 5, and 7 months of age, and its possible relationship to parental infant-directed speech (IDS). It is known that vowel hyperarticulation in IDS is positively associated with the development of speech perception and later vocabulary size of infant. What is not known yet but is reasonable to expect so is that both auditory and visual hyperarticulation may contribute to the development of phonological abstraction and later language development.