Memory inheritor

Chapter 97 Mutual Benefit

The next morning, after washing up, Wei Hongsi made a simple breakfast in the dormitory's makeshift kitchen. While eating, he checked his phone and saw a message from Shen Qing.

"Thank you for your suggestion. I made the changes and it does seem much better, but it still seems to be lacking something, and I don't know where it is."

"I've re-recorded the revised version. Could you please listen to it again and give me some feedback? Thank you!"

Following these two text messages is an audio file, sent at 2:13 AM.

Then, four minutes later, came the last message: "Sorry, you should be resting by now, right? Could you listen to it for me during the day when you have free time? Thanks!"

It seems Shen Qing has been working very late, and she's probably still resting right now, so there's no need to rush to reply to her.

I still haven't received any messages from my brother and Zhang Shengyong, and I don't know what they're busy with.

Based on past experience, their simultaneous and unilateral "loss of contact" most likely indicates some important action. At this juncture, it's hard not to speculate.

After finishing breakfast, Wei Hongsi packaged the analysis charts and data he had created the night before, along with the script written by Feng Weixu, and sent them to his email address, intending to process them when he had some free time.

After arriving at the company, he opened the project proposal for the "Emotional Reshaping Method," made some modifications to the content, and wrote in the ideas he had gained the previous night, adding the dimension of "music."

After reviewing the entire document, I felt that the newly added content was somewhat vague and lacked persuasiveness compared to the research plans proposed for other dimensions.

Wei Hongsi was pondering how to add to the message when he received a message from Shen Qing on Zhixun: "Good morning! Did I bother you last night?"

He casually replied, "No, I silenced my phone when I went to sleep."

Shen Qing: "Oh, that's good. Are you working? I won't disturb you any longer."

Wei Hongsi typed "I'll send you the suggestions later" in the input box, and suddenly realized that Shen Qing was a professional in the music field.

As a singer-songwriter, asking her for help is probably more reliable than finding someone in the company who understands music to assist you; the only question is whether she has the time.

So he deleted what he had typed and rewrote: "I wonder if you have time right now, I'd like to ask you for a favor. I need some musical snippets that can directly convey a certain emotion or psychological feeling, such as happiness, anger, sadness, fear, calmness, tension, etc. Each snippet only needs to be about ten seconds long."

He sent the request in a single message so that Shen Qing could see it completely and decide whether to help. That's the advantage of written communication; it avoids misunderstandings caused by speaking halfway through or misjudging the difficulty of the matter.

Shen Qing: "How many emotions need to be included in each segment?"

Wei Hongsi: "Only one type is needed."

Shen Qing: "Okay."

About ten minutes later, eight audio files were sent over, each between ten and fifteen seconds long.

Wei Hongsi was quite surprised, not expecting her to be so efficient. Little did he know that for Shen Qing, this was just basic skill, not difficult at all.

Each audio file that Shen Qing sent was a complete, independent musical phrase. Some were played on an electric piano, some on a guitar, and others on a violin and a katakana.

She used so many instruments not to show off, but to express an emotion within a musical phrase. Choosing the right instrument can make all the difference.

For example, the electric piano has a clean and crisp tone, expressing joy in major keys and sadness in minor keys, and is extremely convenient to play and record. Similarly, the guitar is very effective at expressing anger, repression, and anxiety, the violin is suitable for expressing fear and tension, and the katakana is very good at portraying ethereal and peaceful emotions.

Unfortunately, to Wei Hongsi, these musical fragments were indistinguishable; it was no exaggeration to say that he was playing music to a brick wall.

After sending them, Shen Qing asked again, "Is this enough? If you feel that any of them are not working well, or if you need a different emotional expression, I can record another one for you."

Wei Hongsi replied, "That's enough for now, thank you!"

Shen Qing: "It's nothing, I should thank you more!"

Wei Hongsi copied all eight audio files and put them in a separate folder. The filenames were all numbered sequentially, and Shen Qing hadn't provided any other explanation, so he had no idea which file represented which emotion.

In Shen Qing's view, this was completely unnecessary. With Wei Hongsi's understanding of music, the most basic emotional expression was immediately apparent; there was no need to add anything superfluous.

Wei Hongsi had no idea what Shen Qing was thinking, but he didn't need it, which made it convenient for him to conduct the next test.

But before that, he felt he should take care of the matter Shen Qing had entrusted to him. It's about helping each other out, and everyone has their own busy schedules; this is also part of the job.

I downloaded the compressed file that I had sent to my email this morning, unzipped and organized the files and programs inside, and then imported the song that Shen Qing had modified into the script for feature extraction and quantitative analysis.

The results showed that, compared to the original version, the predictability of the melody and rhythm of the song had been significantly improved, and the cognitive load had been reduced considerably.

So she really did adopt all those suggestions for modification, making the song more accessible to the public.

After pondering for a while, Wei Hongsi, following his previous line of thought, offered several more suggestions for the revised version.

However, he felt that modifying the song entirely according to "popular" trends wouldn't align with Shen Qing's original intentions. He didn't know how the song would be changed, but compared to Shen Qing's three most popular works, its predictability was considerably lower.

If we continue to change it in this direction, we may push the balance point to the other side, making the song more and more like Shen Qing's previous works.

So he gave Shen Qing another revised proposal.

The brain's "predictive reward" mechanism doesn't actually require everything to perfectly match expectations. This is similar to how seeing too much beautiful stuff can lead to aesthetic fatigue. Always guessing correctly will also bore the brain, and the reward given will become weaker and weaker.

Therefore, creating small deviations from expectations and keeping this "uncertainty" within a relatively mild range can create a surprise for the brain, maximizing dopamine rewards.

This is essentially about finding a balance between completely meeting expectations and completely deviating from them.

Perhaps this is the balance that Shen Qing is looking for.

While pondering, Wei Hongsi wrote down a new revision plan.

He sent both proposals to Shen Qing, trusting that she could make her own judgment.