Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item ST(ILL) SOUNDS: WAVES OF SOUND, HEALTH, AND THE CHOREOGRAPHIC PROCESS(2024) Falcon, Britney; Crawford, Samuel; Keefe, Maura; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)st(ill) sounds: waves of sound, health, and the choreographic process, explores the intersections of sound, healthcare, choreography, and dance performance. The research draws upon psychology, physical and cognitive science, visual art, technology, linguistics, and cripistemologies. Central to the research is the concept of the body as a conduit for the construction of sonic material and states of being. Through critical listening, investigations of the visual, aural, and sensorial, are ways to frame embodied consciousness, identity forming, and cultural exchange. Guided by inquiries into modes of listening and desired modes of being heard, the research unravels the interconnectedness of sound’s affect. The work of Pauline Oliveros, Nina Sun Eidsheim, Nancy Stark Smith, Stanley Keleman, and Cymatic Technology ground this research. The choreographic process is discussed through diverse frameworks and practices which include the exploration of fluid dynamics, wave phenomena, bodily landscapes, vibratory practices, and the co-emergent properties of echo as a feminist force. The research culminates in the creation of a transformative sonic experience through its contributions to performance, process, and relationality, underscored by access.Item The Explanatory Role of Intentional Content in Cognitive Science(2015) Knoll, Andrew Charles; Rey, Georges; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This work argues that intentional content plays at least two explanatory roles in cognitive science. First, it allows cognitive states to be type-individuated independently of their relations to one another and to mind external phenomena. Secondly, it allows for counterfactual preserving generalizations over states so individuated. Thus, intentional content does not play this explanatory role in highly encapsulated cognitive processes. By contrast, it is necessary to type individuate states that partake in isotropic cognitive processes. This work thus cuts a middle path between those who would eliminate intentional content from cognition altogether, and those who take it to be the ‘mark of the mental.’ Chapter 1 argues that there is no good reason to eliminate intentional content from cognitive science. But, it also argues that there is a coherent notion of computation without representation on offer as well. So, many cognitive processes could be explained as computations over states without intentional content. Chapter 2 argues that many extant accounts of the explanatory role of intentional content end up being otiose. Too often, such accounts are concerned with capturing our intuitions about the proper way to talk about cognitive processes. But, in many cases, this talk can be eliminated from our explanations without loss of explanatory power. Chapter 3 lays out the main argument. Many encapsulated cognitive processes—including early perceptual processes-- can be explained in terms of computation without intentional content. In contrast, processes that are open to isotropic revision require their states to be individuated in terms of intentional content. Chapter 4 surveys some objections to this view. One worry is that if cognition is massively modular, then all cognition must be non-intentional. On the contrary, modular processes can also be open to isotropic revision, and thus be amenable to intentional explanation. Chapter 5 provides an example of such a modular process: the phonological system. It argues that states of the phonological system must be individuated in terms of intentional content. Phonological processing thus provides a case study for intentional explanation more generally.Item On The Way To Linguistic Representation: Neuromagnetic Evidence of Early Auditory Abstraction in the Perception of Speech and Pitch(2009) Monahan, Philip Joseph; Idsardi, William J; Poeppel, David E; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The goal of this dissertation is to show that even at the earliest (non-invasive) recordable stages of auditory cortical processing, we find evidence that cortex is calculating abstract representations from the acoustic signal. Looking across two distinct domains (inferential pitch perception and vowel normalization), I present evidence demonstrating that the M100, an automatic evoked neuromagnetic component that localizes to primary auditory cortex is sensitive to abstract computations. The M100 typically responds to physical properties of the stimulus in auditory and speech perception and integrates only over the first 25 to 40 ms of stimulus onset, providing a reliable dependent measure that allows us to tap into early stages of auditory cortical processing. In Chapter 2, I briefly present the episodicist position on speech perception and discuss research indicating that the strongest episodicist position is untenable. I then review findings from the mismatch negativity literature, where proposals have been made that the MMN allows access into linguistic representations supported by auditory cortex. Finally, I conclude the Chapter with a discussion of the previous findings on the M100/N1. In Chapter 3, I present neuromagnetic data showing that the re-sponse properties of the M100 are sensitive to the missing fundamental component using well-controlled stimuli. These findings suggest that listeners are reconstructing the inferred pitch by 100 ms after stimulus onset. In Chapter 4, I propose a novel formant ratio algorithm in which the third formant (F3) is the normalizing factor. The goal of formant ratio proposals is to provide an explicit algorithm that successfully "eliminates" speaker-dependent acoustic variation of auditory vowel tokens. Results from two MEG experiments suggest that auditory cortex is sensitive to formant ratios and that the perceptual system shows heightened sensitivity to tokens located in more densely populated regions of the vowel space. In Chapter 5, I report MEG results that suggest early auditory cortical processing is sensitive to violations of a phonological constraint on sound sequencing, suggesting that listeners make highly specific, knowledge-based predictions about rather abstract anticipated properties of the upcoming speech signal and violations of these predictions are evident in early cortical processing.