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Strange Little Creature |
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Full sleevenotes:
There was a debate running in psychology some years ago concerning the process of mental representation. Point-to-point theory suggested that, in recalling an object or an event, it was as if the individual was literally viewing a picture of the event that had been stored in memory while it was happening. This is certainly our subjective experience of memory, the so-called mind’s eye, in which, when we remember, we “see” a picture in our minds. Another theory is that objects and events are represented as a series of propositions or descriptions and that at the point of recall these propositions are reconstructed to recreate an image. But the propositions we use to store these memories limit the way these memories can be recalled. What if we had used a different set of propositions to describe the object in the first place? Would we recall a different kind of object or would it be the same object but described differently? One of the experiments carried out to test between these theories used what are known as ambiguous figures. These are figures that can be viewed in two different ways. My favourite was a simple line drawing which could be viewed either as a rabbit looking to the right with its long ears pointing left or else as a duck looking to the left where what were previously the rabbit’s ears are now a bill (when the object is viewed as a duck). When a novel ambiguous figure is seen for the first time one view is perceived almost immediately but it takes a few seconds before the alternative view is also spotted. In this experiment, participants were shown ambiguous figures such as the rabbit/duck for a few seconds before it was removed. Participants could clearly recall the image but only reported one view (either the rabbit or the duck but not both). Even when told there was another view participants could not say what it was. Participants were given paper and a pencil and asked to draw the picture they had seen. All were able to reproduce the image almost exactly. More importantly, once they had reproduced the image, all participants could immediately spot the alternative view from the picture they had drawn. I wasn’t thinking of the above when I was deciding which songs should be on this album. They were selected rather more intuitively that that. However, having put them together I was struck that a converging theme seemed to be one of ambiguity. The songs in combination seem to explore different, sometimes conflicting, views of the same experience. Objectively reviewing the written product of intuitive introspection is sometimes quite astonishing. The externalisation of what was previously only internal allows us to look again at what we thought we thought and to discover what it is we really think. To use existing propositions to recreate an experience allows us to take a second look and generate new propositions. The results of the above experiment support a propositional theory of mental representation rather than a point-to-point theory. It strikes me that this album is essentially a musical equivalent of this experiment. It is impossible to perceive multiple views simultaneously. However, the ten ambiguous figures I have drawn here suggest that these multiple views do exist simultaneously. But whether you see a rabbit or a duck depends on whether you are looking left or right. You can always turn your head. I love this art. Nick Troop, London, January 2004. Preview tracks: Hmmm ... what to choose. Spoilt for choice but "Vain As I Am", "A Mind Like Mine" and "Strange Gods" seem to be picked out by many of the reviewers. If you enjoy these songs then please do three things:
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