David Huron
Second International Conference on Music and the Cognitive Sciences, 1990.
Research on physiological aspects of attention has shown an asymmetry in neurological arousal with respect to the direction of stimulus change: increases of stimulus intensity level are more effective than equivalent decreases in evoking listeners' attention. Where musical resources limit a perpetual escalation of intensity level over the course of a work, it is theoretically possible to maintain attention by structuring the work as a sequence of stimulus "ramps" -- i.e., where intensity increases are small and incremental, but stimulus decreases are large and abrupt. Using computer-based methods of score analysis, precisely such a ramp pattern is shown to be prevalent in the dynamics of classical and romantic literature, as well as in voice entries and exits of Baroque polyphony. It would appear that for a large body of musical works, compositional practices are consistent with a theoretical strategy for maintaining passive auditory attention.[1]