Name Recognition Paradox - a Clinical Trial

[sureshvv]

I find that, in general, AIR seems to bring out pretty decent performances from most artistes. Quite often, live performances of the same artistes have left me somewhat dissatisfied.

[karthikbala]

...Karthik bAlA -Can we bring in a collection of male singers like this ?...

will do...

someone enquired about the provenance of the clips. here goes:

TRACK 01 - MS. RADHIKA - AIR, 2002 or earlier
TRACK 02 - MS. CHARULATHA MANI - live concert, 2010
TRACK 03 - MS. RAMA RAVI - AIR, 2002 or earlier
TRACK 04 - SANGEETHA KALANIDHI MS. BALA SARASWATHI - not known
TRACK 05 - MS. SOUNDARAM KRISHNAN - AIR, 2002 or before
TRACK 06 - MS. BOMBAY JAYSHREE + MS. ARUNDHATI - AIR, 2002 or earlier
TRACK 07 - MS. NIRMALA - AIR, 2002 or earlier
TRACK 08 - MS. CHARULATHA MANI - BVB, live concert, 2006.12.02 - full recording @ http://tinyurl.com/yyukdwe
TRACK 09 - MS. SITA RAJAN - AIR, 2002 or earlier
TRACK 10 - MS. RAJI GOPALAKRISHNAN - AIR, 2002 or earlier

[cmlover]

Suresh
Don't get upset! I am not accusing you at all. As a mental health specialist I am very much interested in finding out what makes 'CM tick' or 'not'. There is a ton of evidence as to how people are influenced by 'peer pressure'. The outstanding example is the political arena where folks vote without thinking or questioning by simply following their peers. Appreciation of Arts however should be 'intrinsic' and not based on peer pressure. Most of us may have learned to appreciate music naturally; especially Film Music. Even that is somewhat peer pressure since the media propagate the 'popular' music. As we mature we learn to appreciate CM (which indeed takes a lot of effort) but still do not know what is it that draws us towards CM. When we learn with effort the technicalities then we appreciate (even get addicted) the fine points even if the 'melody' is not there. Many of us still do not appreciate 'tani' since we do not understand the subtlities. CM is 'not' just for the ears but also for the mind. It is easy to put down an artiste for shruti lapses but the same artiste may be a genius in other subtle aspects. We seldom pay attention to laya lapses though that is equally important. I have had laya experts point out 'slips' by SKs eventhough outwardly the performance sounded flawless. It is fascinating (for me) to investigate how, why and what we appreciate in CM!

[sureshvv]

Great job Kartik 8)

What might have made it more interesting is if you had just given the 10 names and then given us another couple of days to play, i.e. match the name against the recording!

May be with the next list

[sureshvv]

Suresh
Don't get upset!

Thanks for the clarification. I was not upset. Just pointing out a flaw in your scientific method where you use invalid evidence to prove your forgone conclusion In any case, please listen to clips #2 and #8 again and tell me which do you think is better and by what margin.

[karthikbala]

@sureshvv: I've corrected the source for #8 and provided the link in post#52

[vasanthakokilam]

Suresh: Though what you are saying sounds like a fun activity, let me ask why do we need the names in the context of the hypothesis of this thread? The whole hypothesis is to see if we bias our assessment based on the artist name. So one way to eliminate that is to not even bring the names into the picture. Right? Just loudly thinking...

[sureshvv]

Though what you are saying sounds like a fun activity, let me ask why...

Spoken like a mod

... do we need the names in the context of the hypothesis of this thread? The whole hypothesis is to see if we bias our assessment based on the artist name. So one way to eliminate that is to not even bring the names into the picture. Right? Just loudly thinking...

I am not asking for the names before we rate the clip. Only in the 2nd identification phase.
Frankly I can tell good music when I hear it and the artiste's identity does not make an iota of difference. I have heard spectacular concerts from relative unknowns (and have reviewed them here) and horrible flops from popular artistes (try not to say too much about these to avoid being a wet blanket for those who enjoyed them).

Actually now that you have the names, go back and listen to the same clips again and see if you like any of them better or less. That may help prove/disprove the premise.

Also 1 min clips are really good only for such fun activity.

[cmlover]

Suresh
Knowing both 2 and 8 are by CM my objective evaluation places 2 better than 8 since I find her Abheri sub standard! Shows that you can always like and dislike the same artiste 'objectively'.
I have listened to some horrible performance by DKP live vs some most exquisite ones. Actually Kartik's bloomer suggesting the presence of at least one SK appears to have thrown a monkey-wrench in this expt since everyone was trying to hunt for one (and losing some objectivity)

[sureshvv]

since I find her Abheri sub standard!

How much Abheri were you expecting in 1 min? Listen to the clip again. Did you notice how she climbs the scale, sets up a solid base and launches herself out of there? And at two different plateaus in succession? I think she reaches upto Ati-tara sthayi Sa in this process. Outstanding! The only artiste that I have listened to executing something like this live is Nithyashree.

Why are you bringing up DKP? My limited mental health expertise suggests to me that you are just assuming that everyone has the same problem that you have

[VK RAMAN]

Let us not shoot the messenger

[vasanthakokilam]

>I am not asking for the names before we rate the clip. Only in the 2nd identification phase

Yes, good point. I like that. Doing in two phases provides the right control parameters.

See if this is the right sequence for the next experiment.

1) Karthik puts up a set of clips with no other suggestive data.
2) Let people provide their subjective/objective rating on a scale of 1 to 10 ( 10 being the highest ). Do not post your guesses on the artist names.
3) Karthik reveals the names of artists without mapping it to specific clips
4) People try to match up clips with artist names
5) Also, provide a revised rating if people feel so inclined.
6) Karthik provides the correct mapping
7) Provide yet another revised rating if people feel so inclined.

I am not sure if people will do 5 and 7, but that does add value to the data to test the hypothesis. We have to be honest about that. ( We should not put a negative value judgment on people revising their ratings after knowing the artist's names, after all that is what we are trying to figure out in a scientific fashion )

We should be able to do this in a week, with the first two steps happening on a Friday/Saturday/Sunday to give people the weekend to listen to the clips the first time. If needed, it can extend to the following weekend.

[mohan]

A suggestion: If a shared/public spreadsheet is set up in Google Docs for people to enter their responses, it will make collating responses very easy - especially if people have to enter multiple ratings.

[rajeshnat]

If rating on a scale (1 to 10) is the main objective , I suggest these steps:
1. let the clip be from 60 seconds to 90 seconds , to get more objectivity in our subjectivity
2.Let us all try to just listen only once and then rate it .
3. I am assuming all the forthcoming ones will be only alApanas.
4. Also preferably zip all the clippings in one file please , it is easier to download

[sureshvv]

If we really cared about the hypothesis, to do this right Kartik should intentionally mislead us right at the start with wrong artiste names against the clip. And then demonstrate that "popular" artistes score higher regardless of quality of clip. Anything short of that does not really prove/disprove cmlover's premise.

In the last go around, it might been interesting if Kartik had just revealed that 2 clips were from the same artiste. I wonder if we would have identified the clips.

[kssr]

Bad selection of artists (Cheechee inda pazham pulickkum- Sour grapes)... Hee Hee Hee. I have not heard most of them or not even heard of them!!

[sureshvv]

Agreed. Even Karthik doesn't seem to know a few of them.

I am also interested in seeing Karthik's objective rating of the clips :^)

[Vijayakumar]

Team

What happened to this experiment after the correction? Can you please update me? I am pretty much interested in this statistical hypothesis testing.