Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Fachner, J. (2006) ‘Set and setting’ in an electrophysiological research paradigm on music perception under the influence of cannabis
and correlated brain function. Music Therapy Today (Online) Vol.VII (2) 333-374. available at http://musictherapyworld.net
sound and timbre of jazz artists (Mezzrow, 1946). De Souza’s change of
preference styles reported above might indicate a change of overtone rec-
ognition in frequency spectra of sound sources.
Moskowitz (1974) reported an increasing number of false alarms in a
task where subjects were asked to detect a randomly occurring 1000 Hz
tone embedded in noise. It seemed that cannabis was stimulating tone
imaginations and subjects heard tones that were not there. Tart”s subjects
reported an intensification of auditory images, as well (C. Tart, 1971).
Thus, cannabis seems to enhance auditory perception throughout a tem-
porary change in the metric frame of reference and allows a larger inten-
sity scaling of perceived musical components. This might help
experienced musicians to play more intensively during improvisations
(Fachner, 2000a). On the background of research results mentioned
above cannabis seems to act as a psycho-acoustic enhancer, or exciter,
equalizer, attenuator, etc. used in modern recording studios, making
sounds more transparent and sound sources more distinct. Greater spatial
separation of sound sources and perceptions of more subtle changes in
the sound were other characteristic cannabis effects in Tart’s study (C.
Tart, 1971). Baudelaire’s and Tart’s descriptions of synesthetic effects,
weakened censorship of visual depth perception (Emrich et al., 1991) and
a transition to a field-dependent style of thinking (A. Dinnerstein, 1966),
suggest intensification of individual cerebral hearing strategy. This type
of learning (Becker, 1963) strategy promotes hyperfocusing on acoustic
space (Curry, 1968), musical time-structure, and a more effective atten-
tion on auditory information.
This short overview on cannabis and auditory perception, an extensive
discussion has been published elsewhere (Fachner, 2000a, 2000b; Fach-
ner, 2001), clearly suggests that there is potential for the use of cannabis
Introduction 339