And, speaking of sounds, I might mention the totally unrelated point that I am starting to put some of my piano recordings and videos from this summer on my website.
Graphic credit, copyright: NYTimes
This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff
MINDBLOG WEB LECTURES:
How much can we change our aging? - Lecture to senior group, Jan. 2018
Making our Brains Younger - 15 min lecture to senior group, Feb., 2014
INTRODUCTORY WEB LECTURES:
MindStuff: A guide for the the curious user
Mindstuff - Bonbons for the curious user
MINDBLOG PODCASTS:
Nice and Beautiful....thanks...the "admirerer"...xo
ReplyDeletethese patterns don't show that there's anything "grammatical" about whalesong any more than the similar kinds of waveforms you might get from recording an air conditioner. Both show there are repeating patterns in the sounds, but not that they can be recombined according to specific rules to communicate similar or different things... right? they are beautiful images though.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct. Repeating patterns have no necessary link to being grammatical. The idea is that the patterns were being scrutinized for any aspects that would be compatible with their being also grammatical.
ReplyDeletevery cool. thanks for the response!
ReplyDeleteI wish there were visualization technologies advanced enough that we could specify what kinds of data patterns we're looking for (in this case, those specific to grammar) and then use our perceptual systems to identify whether those patterns are present in the data. Statistical tests are great, but I wish that "eyeballing" the data could become more of a science...