Man in the World of Sounds

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

1 Transfer of knowledge about the specifics of human sound perception
2 characterization of the specifics of sound as a source of knowledge about surrounding world
3 characterization of the specifics of sound as a medium of communication
4 presentation of the specificity of the psychic experience of spectral and spectro-temporal features of sound
5 presentation of the specificity of the psychic experience of time in the perception of sound phenomena
6 presentation of expressive dynamics as an evolutionarily old component human sound expression
7 characterization of the basic emotional sound expressions of human being
8 characterization of music and speech as the Humboldt systems
9 presentation of the basic problems of musical semantics
10 presentation of the audiosphere concept

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

1. Sound as carrier of information.
2. Sound communication as synchronisation of mental states.
3. The processing of sound stimuli by human nervous system.
4. Speech and music as most complex forms of human sound communcation.
5. Sound as medium of cultural information.

Reading list

Obligatory

1. Huron D.B., Cues and Signals: An Ethological Approach to Music-Related Emotion, „Signata” 6, 2015, p. 331–351.
2. Merker B., Music: The Missing Humboldt System, „Musicae Scientiae” 6, 2002, p. 3–21.
3. Merker B., The Vocal Learning Constellation, in: Music, Language, and Human Evolution, ed. N. Bannan, London 2012, p. 215–260.

Optional

1. Rakowski A., The Domain of Pitch in Music, „Archives of Acoustics” 34(4), 2009, p. 429–443.
2. Reybrouck M., Podlipniak P., Preconceptual Spectral and Temporal Cues as a Source of Meaning in Speech and Music, „Brain Sciences” 9(3)53 (2019).
3. Wiley R.H., Noise matters: the evolution of communication, London 2015.
4. Zeskind P.S., Infant crying and the synchrony of arousal, in: The Evolution of Emotional Communication: From Sounds in Nonhuman Mammals to Speech and Music in Man, ed. E. Altenmüller, S. Schmidt, E. Zimmermann, Oxford-New York 2013, p. 155–174.
5. Zimmermann E., Leliveld L., Schehka S., Toward the evolutionary roots of affective prosody in human acoustic communication: A comparative approach to mammalian voices, in: Evolution of Emotional Communication: From Sounds in Nonhuman Mammals to Speech and Music in Man, ed. E. Altenmüller, S. Schmidt, E. Zimmermann, Oxford-New York: 2013, p. 116–132.