information reduction

[kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I've been interested over the years in the reduction of information in
various media (sound, film/video, text) and stumbled across a company
called "SineWave Synthesis"
<http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Haskins/MISC/SWS/SWScore.html> which
specializes in synthesizing speech using only three sinewave partials...I
went digging through the site and found some abstracts that seemed
interesting...the one I've included struck me as relevent to my pursuit of
reducing the amount of information in sound and how that might be used in
constructing an axis of recognizability in my work...
the concept of 'perceptual glue' (from the title) is of interest because it
seemed that that subject was a focus of some discussion here recently
ie:how one takes part in the production of meaning, what personal
vocabulary we choose to use in deciphering musical/sonic 'texts' etc...
I attached the abstract for anyone who might find it of interest:

>Remez, R.E. & Rubin, P.E., 
>            Acoustic shards, perceptual glue.
>            To appear in J. Charles-Luce, P.A. Luce and J. R. Sawusch (Eds.),
>            Theories in Spoken Language: Perception, Production, and
Development. Ablex
>            Press, Norwood, New Jersey. 
>
>            Little is certain about the principles by which the grouping
of simultaneous and
>            successive acoustic elements occurs in a speech signal.
Neither is there much
>            understood about the details of the perceptual tolerance for
huge variability in the
>            physical acoustic elements on which speech perception is
based. To expose the logic
>            of acoustic coherence pertinent to both issues, our review
examines a candidate
>            explanation deriving from perceptual research on the sinewave
replication of
>            utterances. Three empirical cases are reviewed to show how the
diverse assortment of
>            acoustic elements in a speech signal cohere perceptually. The
first uses sinewave
>            replicas of utterances to reveal the action of a perceptual
sensitivity to time-critical
>            properties of spectral variation; the second identifies an
effect of time-critical sensitivity
>            using synthetic sentences; and the third converging test shows
that this perceptual
>            susceptibility to the time-varying structure of utterances is
independent of the apparent
>            naturalness of the signals. These findings show the dual
action of time-varying
>            properties of speech signals and the listener's perceptual
susceptibility to them: to
>            establish the perceptual coherence of a set of acoustic
elements, and, no less, to
>            sustain phonetic perception despite the novelty of acoustic
elements composing the
>            signal. 
__________________________
kim.cascone
sound.designer...composer

kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.anechoicmedia.com

                mp3 release: "Pulsar Studies 1 - 20" (Falsch)
                CD: "cathodeFlower" (Ritornell/Mille Plateaux)
                               
"the smooth always posseses a greater power of deterritorialization
  than the striated."
    - Deleuze & Guattari