Studying Musical Savants: A Commentary on Grundy and Ockelford

On the basis of the "zygonic" theory of musical understanding (Ockelford, 2006), Grundy and Ockelford (2014) investigated musical expectations evoked during the course of hearing a piece for the first time in a prodigious musical savant (Derek Paravicini). Overall, the results provided by...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bénédicte Poulin-Charronnat
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: The Ohio State University Libraries 2015-01-01
Series:Empirical Musicology Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.18061/emr.v9i2.4030
Description
Summary:On the basis of the "zygonic" theory of musical understanding (Ockelford, 2006), Grundy and Ockelford (2014) investigated musical expectations evoked during the course of hearing a piece for the first time in a prodigious musical savant (Derek Paravicini). Overall, the results provided by Derek support the principles of the zygonic theory, especially that the higher the implication factor of a note, the more likely Derek would predict its occurrence. In my commentary, I first raise the question of the use of such individuals as musical savants to generalize findings to the general population, and second I address the issue of the task and the stimuli used.
ISSN:1559-5749