Desain, P. and Thienen, H. van. (1997) Deutsch & Feroe Formalized.. In European Mathematical Psychology Group Conference. 18. Nijmegen.

Abstract

In Deutsch and Feroe (1981) a first step is taken towards a formal system for encoding pitch sequences in tonal music. This article had only a few predecessors in its line of reasoning (Restle, 1970; Simon, 1972) and it is surprising that, though the work is referred to often in experimental work on music cognition, its main body was never thorougly analysed, implemented, or extended. The reason is, we think, that the presentation is only quasi-formal and still contains confusing inconsistencies. In our work we constructed a fully formal grammar for the language. Furthermore, we formalized the specific type of trees used by Deutsch and Feroe as illustration and provide a formal semantics in terms of these tree structures. This resulted in a clarification of many issues and a better opportunity for further analysis. In our presentation we will stress the role of a properly formalized syntax and semantics when new encoding schemata for cognition are proposed.

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