Diana Deutsch

    How do we listen to music? Well, we listen to music with our ears, of course. However, how do we really hear it? How do we perceive music? Most people never bother to consider these questions when they’re enjoying beautiful music. Most people simply listen. Fortunately, Diana Deutsch is not like most people. When Deutsch listens, she hears more than just music, or melodies, or notes, or instruments. She notices memory patterns, musical illusions, pitch, and paradoxes because Diana Deutsch is not only a doctor of psychology. She is a pioneer in the field of music perception (“Psychologist…”). For her, music is more than a past time or even an art form. For Deutsch, music is an instrument for understanding the human brain.

    The study of music, however, has not always included psychology. For centuries, music was studied solely according to numerical relationships because the human senses were distrusted (Deutsch, ed. xiii). Anicius Manlius Saverinus Boethius, a prominent music theorist from the Middle Ages, clearly expressed this belief in his book, De Institutione Musicae (Deutsch). For example, he described an experiment in which Pythagoras studied a number of black smith’s hammers to determine relationships between sounds. He hypothesized that the weight of the hammer determined the properties of the sound. Boethius described Pythagoras’s observations in this way:

Of five hammers, two were found with weights in a ratio of 2 to 1 and these produced sounds an octave apart. [Pythagoras] found that the one which was double the weight of the other had a weight four-thirds that of another and produced a sound higher by a forth. One hammer, which had a weight three halves that of another, produced the consonance a fifth above....( ).

    It is made clear in this particular study just how important numerical relationships were as opposed to actual perception. Boethius also made sure to reiterate the inaccuracy of the human senses in De Institutione Musicae by stating:

For what need is there of speaking further concerning the error of the senses when this same faculty of sensing is neither equal in all men, nor at all times equal within the same man (Deutsch, ed. xiii)?

    Undoubtedly, Boethius’s philosophy was clearly amiss. Unfortunately, he and his colleagues were simply victims of ignorance for they didn’t understand many important aspects of sound, mathematics, or the human senses. Luckily, there have been advances in mathematics which facilitate the study of probabilistic phenomena. Also, both psychologists and musicians better understand the nature of sound. Most important, however, is our ability to achieve tonal precision thanks to computers and technology (Deutsch, ed. xiii). In the past, there were no methods available to precisely create or identify notes or pitches. In fact, for this reason, notes have actually changed over time. For instance, in the 17^{th century, an A above middle C had a pitch of 422.5 vibrations per second whereas today, that same note has a pitch of 440 vibrations per second (Abrams).}

    Today, the study of music perception abounds due to new technology and a small number of pioneers in the field. One of these pioneers is Dr. Diana Deutsch (“Psychologist…”). Deutsch is responsible for the discovery of a number of musical illusions and phenomena such as the cambiata illusion, the glissando illusion, the octave illusion, the scale illusion, and the tritone paradox (“Diana Deutsch”). Why, though, would a psychologist dedicate her life to researching music? The answer is to understand the brain (“Psychologist…”).

    Surely, it is not common to associate music with brain behavior. Deutsch, however, has a simple explanation: the brain attempts to find meaning in everything, including music. Many of her discoveries illustrate this idea (“Psychologist…”). For example, one discovery, which Deutsch calls the “cambiata illusion,” utilizes headphones to present a listener with a different, repeating pattern in each ear. Even though “the tones in each pattern vary markedly in pitch, many listeners instead hear two melodies formed by tones that are close in pitch, which musicians call 'cambiata patterns.' (“Psychologist…”).” This illusion occurs because the human brain tries to make sense out of the random patterns and pitches that are presented.

    What is more, the cambiata illusion provides insight into cerebral dominance (“Psychologist…”). The human brain has two parts, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body whereas the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body (“One Brain…”). Additionally, each hemisphere is dominant for certain behaviors. In the “typical” brain, it is thought that the right hemisphere is responsible for spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery, and music. The left side is dominant for mathematics, logic, and language (“One Brain…”). Yet, while researching the cambiata illusion, Deutsch noted that “right-handed listeners tend to hear the higher tones on the right and the lower tones on the left while left-handed listeners have more varied listening experiences (“Psychologist…”).” Therefore, patterns of cerebral dominance in left-handed people are not the same as those in a typical brain. It is then probable that a left-handed person uses a different side of their brain to perceive music.

    Similar to the cambiata illusion is the scale illusion. The scale illusion is also best illustrated with headphones. To produce the illusion:

[A major scale is] presented in both ascending a descending form. When a tone from the ascending scale was delivered to one ear, a tone from the descending scale was simultaneously delivered to the other ear, and successive tones in each scale alternated from ear to ear (Deutsch, ed. 102).

Just as in the cambiata illusion, listeners perceive patterns that aren’t actually occurring. The scale illusion sequence was most often perceived as “two melodic lines, a higher one and a lower one, that moved in contrary motion. Further, the higher tones all appeared to be emanating from one earphone and the lower ones from the other (102).” Once again, the cause of this illusion can be attributed to the brain’s desire to create order.

    Obviously, Deutsch’s discoveries are valuable to the field of psychology. However, are they truly useful to composers and musicians? Actually, this question was answered over a century ago by the famous Russian composer, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Deutsch, ed. 104). Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, Pathetique, features combinations of Violin I and Violin II melodies that produce the scale illusion! In the final movement of the symphony, “the theme and accompaniment are each distributed between the two violin parts. However, the theme is heard as coming from one set of instruments and the accompaniment as from the other (104).” A similar illusion occurs in the same movement between the viola and violoncello melodies. It is possible that Tchaikovsky didn’t know he was creating a perceptual illusion, but can such a feat really be coincidental?

    In addition to Deutsch’s numerous discoveries involving musical illusions, she has also done extensive research on the phenomenon of perfect pitch (Abrams). Deutsch, herself, has perfect pitch. Originally, biologists accredited perfect pith to heredity. They believed it was a very rare trait, seeing as only one in every 10,000 Americans has perfect pitch. However, studies by Deutsch and others have shown that perfect pitch can actually be learned (Abrams). In fact, a study done by Deutsch suggests that some people, such as the Vietnamese, require at least near perfect pitch to communicate (“Acoustical Society…”). For example, the phrases “I like your boat” and “I like your bite” in Vietnamese are only differentiable by pitch (Abrams).

    Besides the research and discoveries Diana Deutsch has contributed to the fields of music perception and psychology, she has also contributed in a number of other ways. Currently, she is a psychology professor at the University of California, San Diego (“Diana Deutsch”). She is founding editor of the journal, Music Perception, and editor of the book, The Psychology of Music. She is a member of the ^{American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Acoustical Society of America, the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Furthermore, she is President-Elect of Division 10 of the American Psychological Association and a member of three other APA divisions (“Diana Deutsch”). Also, she is the author of two compact discs that illustrate some of her discoveries, such as the cambiata illusion (“Phantom Words…”).}

    Clearly, Diana Deutsch has had a fulfilling career. One of her most important accomplishments, however, could be her success as a woman in a new field. When Diana Deutsch began her research, music perception was practically an unknown field. Without a doubt, Deutsch has been at the forefront of her field of music psychology and perception since its very beginning. Similarly, other women have been pioneers in the field of music, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Marion Anderson. True, Hildegard of Bingen was not a leader in her field, music, since its beginning. This would be impossible since music is ancient. Hildegard was, however, one of the first notable female musicians. Hildegard did not pave the way for all musicians to come, but she did pave the way for female musicians to come. Likewise, Marian Anderson was also a foremost member in the field of music. She was one of the first African American women to succeed in music and created opportunity for other African American women such as Leontyne Price, Celia Cruz, and Natalie Cole. In this way, Hildegard of Bingen, Marian Anderson, and Diana Deutsch are all, in some way, pioneers for music.

        Inescapably, Diana Deutsch does not sing, compose, or play an instrument. Her contributions to music, however, are undeniable. If it weren’t for her passion and initiative, it is very possible that the study of music psychology and perception may not even exist, today. Deutsch did not merely succeed in a man’s field of study, she created her own! She truly represents a new standard for the women of tomorrow to strive for.

Works Cited

Abrams, Michael. “The Biology of…Perfect Pitch,” Discover Magazine, Volume 22 Number 12. http://www.discover.com

/issues/dec-01/departments/featbiology/. December 2001.

“Acoustical Society of America, 138th Meeting Lay Language Papers: Tone Language Speakers Possess Absolute Pitch.”

http://www.acoustics.org/press/138th/deutsch.htm.

“Diana Deutsch.” http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch/.

Deutsch, Diana, ed. The Psychology of Music. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1982.

“One Brain…or Two?” http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html.

“Psychologist Explores Phantom Words, Memory for Musical Tones.”

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=500165.

“The Man Who Invented Music.” http://www.themusicpage.org/

articles/Invented%20Music.html.