norns time shifting script based on animal CFF (critical-flicker fusion frequency) and their perception of the world

sample player and looper

required

• norns (240424 or later)
  • the required norns version is recent, please be sure that your norns is up-to-date before launching

install directly from gitHub

or

in maiden type:

;install https://github.com/2roundrobins/perception

there are quite a few studies suggesting quite noticable correlation between CFF (critical-flicker fusion frequency) and the perception of time and temporal resolution within the animal kingdom, including humans. although CFF is mostly linked to a visual threshold, where animals ceases to perceive flickering of a light source and sees a continous stream of light (Inger, 2014), the differenct perception of time has been assesed over different sensory modalities, including auditory (Fink, 2006).

thus, my goal was to create a sample player & looper, which takes not only CFF data, but also hearing range of different species into time-mangling consideration - essentially shifting the listeners auditory perception to that of a different species.

the script features the following animal species;

the CFF values for these particular animals were taken from a Google Sheet prepared by Jason Schukraft from the article Does Critical-Flicker Fusion Frequency Track The Subjective Experience of Time, which the values were taken from the academic journal Potential Biological and Ecological Effects of Flickering Artificial Light by Richard Inger.

i will be updating the list of animals in the following updates!

• E1 change species
• E2 volume
• E3 fine tune
• K1 + K2 toggle recording
• K1 + K3 clear recording buffer
• K2 start/stop
• K3 reverse

perception script can be used both as a instrument looper and sample player. technically you can use them both at the same time, however I find it more usefull to go either the recording or sample playback route.

start recording your audio by holding K1 and pressing K2. this will toggle recording state and you will be able to see it by observing the symbol at the bottom of the screen.

• [...] means softcut is playing
• [REC] means softcut is recording

currently the loop is set to 6 seconds, however you can change that by visiting the PARAMS

clear the recording by holding K1 and pressing K3

by visiting the PARAMS menu you can easily load your samples via norns's own disk and use it to play into the buffer

by default you start as human, however by moving E1 you can experience the world of animals

moving the encoder will change the main gui and tell you how you are experiencing time through the selected species. you can observe this by seeing the CFF value.

moving clockwise shall slow down your track, as you are moving towards animals with highter CFF values, thus experiencing the world in a much slower pace. by moving E1 counter-clockwise you are speeding up the sample, as you are moving towards animals with lower CFF values, experiencing the world in a much more hectic manner

• moving E2 will change the volume of your recorded material
• moving E3, you can fine tune your sample within the perception of species. this is to help you overdubb certain elements in key, if you overdubb it through the eyes of different species.
• pressing K2 will toggle play/stop
• pressing K3 will flip the buffer direction

by visiting PARAMS, you can change the behavior of the recording buffer or load samples, however you can also activate some other interesting parameters

in order to fully immerse into the perception of animals, you can also activate their hearing range by activating the bandpass filter. by activating, each animal will have a certain bandpass filter based on it's species hearing range. some of these are more speculative, however most have been taken from studies and articles.

you can also automate certain elements of the script by entering the chaos playground

Yee Naaldlooshii shapeshift through different animals by summoning a skinwalker, by repeling it you will stay on the selected species

Bats! activate random panning

Time Machine activate moving forwards and backwards in time

all of these have their own intervals, which you can use to make some wacky results

• cff values were taken from Inger's journal Potential Biological and Ecological Effects of Flickering Artificial Light
• a huge thanks goes to @sonocircuit for testing and giving feedback
• a big thank you to the support on lines community and sleep discord server

• Inger, R. Potential Biological and Ecological Effects of Flickering Artificial Light
• Schukraft, J. Does Critical-Flicker Fusion Frequency Track The Subjective Experience of Time
• Xie, L., Wang, M. The characterization of auditory brainstem response (ABR) waveforms: A study in tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri)
• E. Bostrom, J. Ultra-Rapid Vision in Birds
• Carlile S., Pettigrew A. G. Auditory responses in the torus semicircularis of the cane toad, Bufo marinus. II. Single unit studies
• Healey, K. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information
• Fink, M. Stimulus-dependent processing of temporal order
• RR Fay. 1988. Hearing in Vertebrates: a Psychophysics Databook. Hill-Fay Associates, Winnetka IL.
• D Warfield. 1973. The study of hearing in animals. In: W Gay, ed., Methods of Animal Experimentation, IV. Academic Press, London, pp 43-143.
• RR Fay & AN Popper, eds. 1994. Comparative Hearing: Mammals. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research Series. Springer-Verlag, NY.
• CD West. 1985. The relationship of the spiral turns of the cochela and the length of the basilar membrane to the range of audible frequencies in ground dwelling mammals. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 77:1091-1101.
• EA Lipman & JR Grassi. 1942. Comparative auditory sensitivity of man and dog. Amer J Psychol 55:84-89.
• HE Heffner. 1983. Hearing in large and small dogs: Absolute thresholds and size of the tympanic membrane. Behav Neurosci 97:310-318.