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layers of sound is the maximum for obtaining
density and clarity? Murch's conceptual model
corresponds well to Miller's (1956) The Magical
Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits
on Our Capacity for Processing Information .
As humans, we have limitations with regard to
processing data. Miller (1956) discussed this in
terms of bits and c hunks :
the immersion radically, and even an old film
such as The Phantom Chariot (Sjöström, 1921),
with a musical soundtrack composed by Matti
Bye in 1998, becomes an interesting movie. This
clearly exemplifies that sound, even if it is only
music, has the effect of including the audience in
the environment and that the moving images do
not, in themselves, have the same desired effect,
which supports Ong's claim on the bipolarity of
vision and hearing. Only music… well, of course,
music should not be solely considered as embod-
ied rather than encoded. Music is a plethora of
systems. It can be narrative and it contains many
cultural dependent codes. However, Murch's point
is that music works rapidly and is usually aimed
more at our emotive rather than our intellectual
response. There are, of course, differences between
individuals. “For a piece of music we identify the
melodies, themes, and rhythmic patterns, to the
extent that our musical training permits” (Chion,
1994, p. 45). In the case of Bye's musical score for
The Phantom Chariot, much of the music mimics
other kinds of sounds, such as the squeaks of the
chariot's wheels, and therefore the music is also
clearly semantic. Bye's music can very well be said
to make use of a scale of sounds from encoded to
embodied that comprises the soundtrack.
Thus far we can conclude that Murch's model
fits well into the idea of an upper limitation of a
simultaneous processing capacity that has been
thoroughly investigated since at least 1956 and
onwards. Furthermore, the conceptual model he
suggests makes it possible to consider sound on
a scale spanning from encoded to embodied. This
in turn implies that if such a scale, spanning from
encoded to embodied sound, were to be used in
combination with the IEZA-framework, it would
be much easier to structure a sonic environment
for a computer game. We also have a new set of
parameters that add content to the sound categories
suggested by the IEZA-framework. This content
is the level of meaning a specific sound carries.
Meaning, or semantic value, is not only carried
by sonic signs such as the spoken words, utter-
If the human observer is a reasonable kind of
communication system, then when we increase
the amount of input information the transmit-
ted information will increase at first and will
eventually level off at some asymptotic value.
This asymptotic value we take to be the channel
capacity of the observer: it represents the greatest
amount of information that he can give us about
the stimulus on the basis of an absolute judg-
ment. The channel capacity is the upper limit on
the extent to which the observer can match his
responses to the stimuli we give him.
He used Pollack's (1952, 1953) work on au-
ditory displays to discuss and explain absolute
judgment of unidimensional stimuli which clearly
showed the channel capacity for pitch to be “2.5
bits which corresponds to about six equally likely
alternatives” (Miller, 1956). It is interesting to note
that sound was the focus for this groundbreak-
ing work on the human capacity for processing
information.
The combination of moving images and sonic
environment makes up the setting in which the
actions of a movie or a game take place. Watch-
ing a movie without any sound added is often
somewhat dull. Our experience is that an audience
trying to become immersed in old silent movies
without any preserved soundtrack grows bored
and separated from the events on the screen. This
is in accordance with Walter Ong's (1982/90)
remarks on the bipolarity of sight and hearing
which we later elaborate in the discussion about
playing computer games and listening to the
sounds. Adding a musical soundtrack heightens
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