Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Publication
    Zoom Out Camera! The Reflexive Character of an Enactive Account
    (Frontiers Media, 2020-05-06)
    The reflexive character of enactive theory is spelled out, in an effort to make explicit that which is usually implicit in debate: that we are responsible for the distinctions we draw, and that ultimately, the world that we collectively characterize is a joint production. Enaction, as treated here, is not a positivist scientific field, but an epistemologically self-conscious way to ground our understanding of the value-saturated lives of embodied beings. This stance is seen as entirely congruent with the scientific field of ecological psychology, which is itself then cast as a specific example of the kind of science that can be done in an enactive mode.
    Scopus© Citations 3  138
  • Publication
    Joint speech as an object of empirical inquiry
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018-10-22)
    Any time multiple people utter the same words at the same time, we have an instance of “joint speech.” With this simple definition, we bring into being a rather odd and challenging object of empirical study. There is no shortage of readily available primary data that satisfies the criterion. We find examples in churches and temples, of course, but also in the secular auditoriums where oaths are sworn and allegiance is pledged. The definition also picks out the repetitive chanting of protest in which collective aspirations and passions are made manifest. To these, we have to add those tribal practices in which group identities are enacted among sports supporters (some sports more than others), and a motley variety of educational and informal practices including such trivial rituals as the singing of Happy Birthday. There is plenty of joint speech to study, and participation in such activities in some form or another appears to be ubiquitous through millennia and across the globe.
    Scopus© Citations 3  320
  • Publication
    The Territory Between Speech and Song: A Joint Speech Perspective
    (University of California Press, 2020-04)
    Speech and song have frequently been treated as contrasting categories. We here observe a variety of collective activities in which multiple participants utter the same thing at the same time, a behavior we call joint speech. This simple empirical definition serves to single out practices of ritual, protest, and the enactment of identity that span the range from speech to song and allows consideration of the manner in which such activities serve to ground collectives. We consider how the musical elements in joint speech such as rhythm, melody, and instrumentation are related to the context of occurrence and the purposes of the participants. While music and language have been greatly altered by developments in media technologies—from writing to recordings—joint speech has been, and continues to be, an integral part of practices, both formal and informal, from which communities derive their identity. The absence of joint speech from the scientific treatment of language has made language appear as an abstract intellectual and highly individualized activity. Joint speech may act as a corrective to draw our attention back to the voice in context, and the manner in which collective identities are enacted.
      358Scopus© Citations 10
  • Publication
    Making use of contact, niches, and coordination
    (Constructivist Foundations, 2017-07-15)
    Upshot: The eigenforms of Von Foerster, like the concept of invariants in ecological psychology, have proved useful in stimulating both theory and empirical work in the study of perceptually guided action. The target article offers a novel elaboration of the core idea of invariance in flux. I offer three sketches that suggest how the novel formalism might provide a useful stimulus to thought in specific domains: the use of names, Buddhist accounts of perception, and the sharing of experience in intense interpersonal interaction.
      157
  • Publication
    Adapting and Parameterising Auditory Icons for use in a Synthetic Musical Instrument
    (The Institution of Engineering and Technology., 2009-06-10) ; ;
    In this paper we describe the adaptation and parameterization of environmental auditory event structures for use in a real-time musical synthesizer. In doing so, we have developed a new software musical instrument based on the parametric representation of ecological sound structures, and which facilitates the application of typically non-musical auditory events in a musical context. Since this approach is to be realised within a low-latency, performance oriented synthesizer, our aim is not the development of computationally expensive physical models, but rather to effectively convey complex auditory events using arrays of simple sinusoidal components, while still retaining the key perceptual features of those events. By offering a performer ecologically-derived parameter control, we aim to encourage an Everyday Listening approach to electronic music performance, while also allowing the user to combine and develop typically unrelated elements of environmental auditory events.
      465
  • Publication
    The Quantititive Estimation of Asynchrony Among Concurrent Speakers
    (University College Dublin. School of Computer Science and Informatics, 2008-03-17)
    A novel method for the estimation of asynchrony among two speakers reading together is proposed. Previous estimates of asynchrony were based only on the pointwise measurement of lag. We here adapt the well known method of dynamic time warping to align two utterances. The resulting warp path allows a quantitative estimate of asynchrony. Illustrative examples are provided, which demonstrate that the novel method can distinguish synchronization performance in a variety of speaking conditions.
      73