Perfect Pitch Essays - Cognitive Musicology, Music Cognition

Perfect Pitch Perfect Pitch is the ability to identify any musical note without comparison to a reference note, and is a talent displayed in a small amount of people. What causes it is a question which has attracted a lot of attention lately. Scientists are asking them selves if it is a learned ability or are we given this unique talent through our genes. MRI scans in test have shown an enlarged portion of the brain present in individuals gifted the ability of perfect pitch. Scientists have been extensively surveying and testing musicians and non-musicians alike to place the key to this rare and special gift. A research team from D?sseldorf, Germany believes they have located the physical basis of perfect pitch. The team led b y neurologist Gottfried Schlaug and Helmuth Steinmetz of D?sseldorf Heinrich Heine University report that the planum temporale is far larger on the left side than on the right side in professional musicians--especially in those who have perfect pitch (Nowak 616). Previous studies have suggested that the left hemispheric activation sites in the brain are seen during phonological, lexical, or semantic language task performance, while the right hemispheric preponderances are found for melodic and pitch perception (Schlaug 699). So Schlaug and his colleagues decided to examine the relative sizes of the left and right planum temporale in musicians' brains because previous work has shown that a leftward asymmetry there is associated with mental functions unique to humans, such as language (Blakeslee A16). Steinmetz believes that the neurological basis of music making is l ikely to be in the planum temporale since music may be "an even higher function" than language (qtd. Nowak 616). Researches carried out comparisons by means of magnetic resonance imaging, which allowed the researchers to measure the volume of specific brain structures. They compared the images of the brains of thirty professional musicians (eleven with perfect pitch, nineteen without) with those of thirty sex and age matched non-musicians. The left planum temporale was larger than the right in both musicians and non-musicians. But the size disparity was twice as great for the musicians, a difference almost entirely due to the presence in the group of musicians with perfect pitch (Chatterjee 16). Other studies are trying to pin down perfect pitch in our genes. Peter k Gregersen, MD, chief of the division of biology and human genetics at North Shore University Hospital (Manhasset) has observed that perfect pitch seems to run in the family. Out of 126 people with perfect pitch surveyed, five and a half percent reported their parents having perfect pitch and twenty-six said they have siblings with the skill. While on the other hand only one point one percent of the musicians without perfect pitch reported there parents having it and one point three percents of there siblings with the skill ("North Shore" 38). The survey also pointed out that all of those musicians with perfect pitch started playing at an average age of four point seven years, while those without it started at seven point three years old. Another study led by Siamak Baharloo from the University of California, San Francisco, surveyed six hundred musicians and found that forty percent of those with perfect pitch cl aimed to have a relative with the talent, while only twelve percent of those without perfect pitch said they had a family member with the ability (Travis 316). Researchers have also suggested that early exposure to pitches can help obtain perfect pitch. Diana Deutsch of the University of California, San Diego, has found that perfect pitch is common among native speakers of tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese. Deutsch quoted that "Our findings show that speakers of Vietnamese and Mandarin possess an extraordinarily precise form of absolute pitch, which is reflected in their enunciation of words." She goes on to say that "since all except one of the subjects in the study had received little or no musical training, we conclude that this ability resulted from their early acquisition of tone language, and that they had learned to associate pitches with meaningful words very early in life" (University of California n.p.). In conclusion perfect pitch is believed to be caused by a variety of things. Research has shown links to

Using Standard Normal Distribution in Mathematics

Using Standard Normal Distribution in Mathematics The standard normal distribution, which is more commonly known as the bell curve, shows up in a variety of places. Several different sources of data are normally distributed. As a result of this fact, our knowledge about the standard normal distribution can be used in a number of applications. But we do not need to work with a different normal distribution for every application. Instead, we work with a normal distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. We will look at a few applications of this distribution that are all tied to one particular problem. Example Suppose that we are told that the heights of adult males in a particular region of the world are normally distributed with a mean of 70 inches and a standard deviation of 2 inches. Approximately what proportion of adult males are taller than 73 inches?What proportion of adult males are between 72 and 73 inches?What height corresponds to the point where 20% of all adult males are greater than this height?What height corresponds to the point where 20% of all adult males are less than this height? Solutions Before continuing on, be sure to stop and go over your work. A detailed explanation of each of these problems follows below: We use our z-score formula to convert 73 to a standardized score. Here we calculate (73 – 70) / 2 1.5. So the question becomes: what is the area under the standard normal distribution for z greater than 1.5? Consulting our table of z-scores shows us that 0.933 93.3% of the distribution of data is less than z 1.5. Therefore 100% - 93.3% 6.7% of adult males are taller than 73 inches.Here we convert our heights to a standardized z-score. We have seen that 73 has a z score of 1.5. The z-score of 72 is (72 – 70) / 2 1. Thus we are looking for the area under the normal distribution for 1z 1.5. A quick check of the normal distribution table shows that this proportion is 0.933 – 0.841 0.092 9.2%Here the question is reversed from what we have already considered. Now we look up in our table to find a z-score Z* that corresponds to an area of 0.200 above. For use in our table, we note that this is where 0.800 is below. When we look at the table, we see that z* 0.84 . We must now convert this z-score to a height. Since 0.84 (x – 70) / 2, this means that x 71.68 inches. We can use the symmetry of the normal distribution and save ourselves the trouble of looking up the value z*. Instead of z* 0.84, we have -0.84 (x – 70)/2. Thus x 68.32 inches. The area of the shaded region to the left of z in the diagram above demonstrates these problems. These equations represent probabilities and have numerous applications in statistics and probability.

Personal School Health Education School Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personal School Health Education School - Essay Example From the discussion it is clear that children who are without parental care are prone to violence, drug abuse, exploitation, and educational problems as well as HIV/AIDS infection. School based child protection program is a program designed to responds to children’s social, economical and development needs. One of the basic needs of children is the right to good health and provision of health care services. As the paper declares personal School Health Education provides a basic understanding and responds to the health needs of children. Poverty is the major challenge facing this program as it exposes children to the world as a vulnerable society. The world human rights laws protect children from harmful work and economic exploitation. It states that all children are entitled to provision of education and health services regardless of the economic status of the country or community. In this case, children education is mandatory in every country all around the world. Personal School Health Education has been introduced in the education curriculum to provide guidelines in the provision of children health service. Social and emotional wellbeing is an important as aspect in the growth of children as it directly affects physical health. Good emotional, psychological and social health protects children against emotional and behavioural changes. Emotional and social wellbeing are influenced by a various factors which are individual make-up, community and family background. Healthy education development Personal School Health Education helps in the development of a healthy environment for the growth of young people. Staying healthy entails the understanding of a person’s emotional being and maintaining healthy eating habits. The health of a person influences his or her education prospects. A healthy body promotes a positive state of mind that supports understanding thus positively influences education. Tutor groups Tutor group is a section in the Personal School Health Education that helps in the creation of a positive and healthy learning environment. It promotes the wellbeing of a person as it creates positive understanding of the person’s health status and also provides guidelines on how to live healthily. The basic idea of the introduction of tutor groups in the Personal School Health Education program was to foster the application of theoretical skills i nto practical life. The concept of group ideology helps in the sharing of experiences thus present theoretical education in a practical format. It also helps to monitor the health and wellbeing of children as a tutor is assigned a small group of children whom he or she monitors their health progress during the education program. Tutor groups help in the rating of the program’s capability in enhancing health and wellbeing of young people and their development at large. Behavior Management School systems are experiencing a climate of change towards the behavioral norms upheld by children and students. These changes enable students to think comprehensively about ways in which they can contribute to the society in a healthy manner that reflects their positive perspectives. Such is with the introduction of the Personal School Health Education (PSHE); a program enabling schools contribute to the well-being of the