Perception of mode, rhythm, and contour in unfamiliar melodies: Effects of age and experience

We explored the ability of older (60-80 years old) and younger (18-23 years old) musicians and nonmusicians to judge the similarity of transposed melodies varying on rhythm, mode, and/or contour (Experiment 1) and to discriminate among melodies differing only in rhythm, mode, or contour (Experiment 2). Similarity ratings did not vary greatly among groups, with tunes differing only by mode being rated as most similar. In the same/different discrimination task, musicians performed better than nonmusicians, but we found no age differences. We also found that discrimination of major from minor tunes was difficult for everyone, even for musicians. Mode is apparently a subtle dimension in music, despite its deliberate use in composition and despite people's ability to label minor as "sad" and major as "happy."

The Atlantic and Everything After

As a reader, I am drawn to pieces that flirt with the boundaries between prose and poetry and I believe these preferences are evidenced in my own work, which not only encompasses creative nonfiction and poetry, but which also teases its way along the line separating the two. In The Atlantic and Everything After, I have worked with both prose poetry and the lyric essay, two styles that combine and highlight the different strengths of creative nonfiction and poetry.I created this work to explore the transformation I embarked upon when I first boarded that plane to Nova Scotia in August 2009. I created it to pay homage to the people and places that have moved or changed me. I created it to acknowledge the many similarities of travel and writing, both of which are often ugly, uncomfortable, a bit frightening, and terribly frustrating.In the process of its creation, I was forced to confront painful and delightful memories, to realize the significance of those memories within my own heart. I exercised the modes of poetry and nonfiction (and a few in between) in order to bring the many complicated aspects of travel together in a way that does its discomfort and enchantment equal justice. I have filled the pages of The Atlantic and Everything After with my poems and my prose, my own life-cherishing force. I am pleased to welcome you to it.

Gender Differences in Emotional Responses to Hooking Up

The present research looked to explore the relationship between the emotional responses of college students to different hooking up behaviors. Seven hundred and nine undergraduates participated in a web-based survey that included a demographic questionnaire, SDS, PANAS, AUDIT, and a measure of hooking up. This measure examined the frequency with which they participated in eight different types of hooking up varying by degree of familiarity to their hook partner and whether or not the hook up was coital or non-coital, as well as their emotional responses to the behavior and their perception of the emotional responses of their partner. Results showed that both menand women experienced more positive emotional responses to hooking up behaviors than negative emotional responses. Men experienced significantly more positive emotional responses to hook up behaviors than did women. Women experienced significantly more negative emotional responses for hook ups that were coital with strangers than did men, while men experienced more positive emotional responses for hook ups that were coital with strangers, coital with acquaintances, and coital with partners that were previous romantic partners than did women. Men also experienced more positive emotional responses for hook ups that were non-coital with strangers and non-coital withacquaintances. Men tended to rate their partner’s positive emotional responses higher than what women reported experiencing, particularly for hook ups with less familiar partners. Women’s ratings of their partner’s negative emotional responses were lower than what men actually reported experiencing. The data collected provide several opportunities for future analyses to be conducted and this research will add to the relatively small body of literature on hooking up.

Not in the Legends

In writing “Not in the Legends”, one of the images and concepts which constantly returned was that of pilgrimage. I began to write these poems while studying abroad in London, after having passed the previous semester in France and travelling around Europe. There was something in the repetition of sightseeing— walking six miles in Luxembourg to see the grave of General Patton, taking photographs of the apartment where Sylvia Plath ended her life, bowing before the bones of saints, searching through Père Lachaise for the grave of Théodore Gericault— which struck me as numinous and morbid. At the same time, I came to love living abroad and I grew discontent with both remaining and returning. I wanted the opportunity to live everywhere all the time and not have to choose between home and away. Returning from abroad, I turned my attention to the landscape of my native country. I found in the New England pilgrims a narrative of people who had left their home in search of growth and freedom. In these journeys I began to appreciate the significance of place and tried to understand what it meant to move from one place to another, how one chose a home, and why people searched for meaning in specific locations. The processes of moving from student to worker and from childhood to adulthood have weighed on me. I began to see these transitions towards maturity as travels to a different land. Memory and nostalgia are their own types of pilgrimage in their attempts to return to lost places, as is the reading of literature. These pilgrimages, real and metaphorical, form the thematic core of the collection. I read the work of many poets who came before me, returning to the places where the Canon was forged. Those poets have a large presence in the work I produced. I wondered how I, as a young poet, could earn my own place in the tradition and sought models in much the same way a painter studies the brushstrokes of a master. In the process, I have tried to uncover what it means to be a poet. Is it something like being a saint? Is it something like being a colonist? Or is to be the one who goes in search of saints and colonists? In trying to measure my own life and work based on the precedent, I have questioned what role era and generation have on the formation of identity. I focused my reading heavily on the early years of English poetry, trying to find the essence of the time when the language first achieved the transcendence of verse. In following the development of English poetry through Coleridge, John Berryman, and Allison Titus, I have explored the progression of those basic virtues in changing contexts. Those bearings, applied to my modern context, helped to shape the poetry I produced. Many of the poems in “Not in the Legends” are based on my own personal experience. In my recollections I have tried to interrogate nostalgia rather than falling into mere reminiscence. Rather than allowing myself poems of love and longing, I have tried to find the meaning of those emotions. A dominant conflict exists between adventure and comfort which mirrors the central engagement with the nature of being “here” or “there”. It is found in scenes of domesticity and wilderness as I attempt to understand my own simultaneous desire for both. For example, in “Canned Mangoes…” the intrusion of nature, even in a context as innocuous as a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh, unravels ordinary comforts of the domestic sphere. The character of “The Boy” from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot proved such an interesting subject for me because he is one who can transcend the normal boundaries of time and place. The title suggests connections to both place and time. “Legends” features the dual meaning of both myths and the keys to maps. To propose something “Not in the Legends” is to find something which has no precedent in our histories and our geographies, something beyond our field of knowledge and wholly new. One possible interpretation I devised was that each new generation lives a novel existence, the future being the true locus of that which is beyond our understanding. The title comes from Keats’ “Hyperion, a Fragment”, and details the aftermath of the Titanomachy. The Titans, having fallen to the Olympians, are a representation of the passing of one generation for the next. Their dejection is expressed by Saturn, who laments: Not in my own sad breast, Which is its own great judge and searcher out, Can I find reason why ye should be thus: Not in the legends of the first of days… (129-132) The emotions of the conquered Titans are unique and without antecedent. They are experiencing feelings which surpass all others in history. In this, they are the equivalent of the poet who feels that his or her own sufferings are special. In contrast are Whitman’s lines from “Song of Myself” which serve as an epigraph to this collection. He contends for a sense of continuity across time, a realization that youth, age, pleasure, and suffering have always existed and will always exist. Whitman finds consolation in this unity, accepting that kinship with past generations is more important that his own individuality. These opposing views offer two methods of presenting the self in history. The instinct of poetry suggests election. The poet writes because he feels his experiences are special, or because he believes he can serve as a synecdoche for everyone. I have fought this instinct by trying to contextualize myself in history. These poems serve as an attempt at prosopography with my own narrative a piece of the whole. Because the earth abides forever, our new stories get printed over the locations of the old and every place becomes a palimpsest of lives and acts. In this collection I have tried to untangle some of those layers, especially my own, to better understand the sprawling legend of history.

Mother-Child Spiritual Discourse: A Mixed Methods Study

Parents and children, starting at very young ages, discuss religious and spiritual issues¿where we come from, what happens to us after we die, is there a God, and so on. Unfortunately, few studies have analyzed the content and structure of parent-child conversation about religion and spirituality (Boyatzis & Janicki, 2003; Dollahite & Thatcher, 2009), and most studies have relied on self-report with no direct observation. The current study examined mother-child (M-C) spiritual discourse to learn about its content, structure, and frequency through a survey inventory in combination with direct video observation using a novel structured task. We also analyzed how mothers¿ religiosity along several major dimensions related to their communication behaviors within both methods. Mothers (N = 39, M age = 40) of children aged 3-12 completed a survey packet on M-C spiritual discourse and standard measures of mothers¿ religious fundamentalism, intrinsic religiosity, sanctification of parenting (how much the mother saw herself as doing God¿s work as a parent), and a new measure of parental openness to children¿s spirituality. Then, in a structured task in our lab, mothers (N = 33) and children (M age = 7.33) watched a short film or read a short book that explored death in an age-appropriate manner and then engaged in a videotaped conversation about the movie or book and their religious or spiritual beliefs. Frequency of M-C spiritual discourse was positively related to mothers¿ religious fundamentalism (r = .71, p = .00), intrinsic religiosity (r = .77, p = .00), and sanctification of parenting (r = .79, p = .00), but, surprisingly, was inversely related to mothers¿ v openness to child¿s spirituality (r = -.52, p = .00). Survey data showed that the two most common topics discussed were God (once a week) and religion as it relates to moral issues (once a week). According to mothers their children¿s most common method of initiating spiritual discourse was to repeat what he or she has heard parents or family say about religious issues (M = 2.97; once a week); mothers¿ most common method was to describe their own religious/spiritual beliefs (M = 2.92). Spiritual discourse most commonly occurred either at bedtime or mealtime as reported by 26% of mothers, with the most common triggers reported as daily routine/random thoughts (once a week) and observations of nature (once a week). Mothers¿ most important goals for spiritual discourse were to let their children know that they love them (M = 3.72; very important) and to help them become a good and moral person (M = 3.67; very important). A regression model showed that significant variance in frequency of mother-child spiritual discourse (R2 = .84, p = .00) was predicted by the mothers¿ importance of goals during discourse (ß = 0.46, p = .00), frequency that the mother¿s spirituality was deepened through spiritual discourse (ß = 0.39, p = .00), and the mother¿s fundamentalism (ß = 0.20, p = .05). In a separate regression, the mother¿s comfort in the structured task (ß = 0.70, p = .00), and the number of open-ended questions she asked (ß = -0.26, p = .03) predicted the reciprocity between mother and child (R2 = .62, p = .00). In addition, the mother¿s age (ß = 0.22, p = .059) and comfort during the task (ß = 0.73, p = .00) predicted the child¿s engagement within the structured task. Other findings and theoretical and methodological implications will be discussed.

River-Like

I compose a poem in the same way I compose a photograph: shifting focus until I see only what is most beautiful or most terrible, warily choosing what will be in view and what will be left out, trying to find just the right amount of light or darkness. Art¿¿poetry, especially¿¿is a way for me to frame and illuminate experience. In this collection, I investigate experiences that dumbfound me, and the details of landscape become a vocabulary for discovery. The wheat fields of the Midwest are signifiers for loss and homesickness; a Pennsylvania forest is a catalyst for meditations on pregnancy and motherhood. Images of light and of water are abundant in these poems, and the speakers of my poems look to these elements for guidance and comfort with almost religious deference.