Computer-Baesed Recognition of Perceptual Patterns and Learning Styles in Rhythmic Dictation Exercises

Abstract

During the 1978-79 academic year, sixteen freshman music majors participated in an experiment in which their response data were saved as they worked through 24 units of rhythmic dictation exercises in the University of Delaware's GUIDO® system. Analysis of the student data base showed perceptual patterns and learning styles common to exercises in both simple and compound meters. First, it was found that basic undotted, nonduplet, nontriplet notes are confused exclusively with themselves and never with dotted notes, duplets, or triplets. The same exclusive confusion pattern is seen for dotted notes, duplets, and triplets, except that they are also confused with their unmodified basic counterparts. By varying the time signatures used in the experiment, it was found that significantly more exercises are correctly answered in simple meter when a four is on the bottom, and the same pattern was found when an eight is on the bottom in compound meter. Randomly varying the pitch of the monotone stimulus between c and c2 had no effect on student achievement. As the level of difficulty increased in the 24 units, so did the average student response time and the number of times students asked for the stimulus to be replayed. The average speed at which students played the stimulus also decreased. Students who used high average dictation speeds tended to request fewer repetitions of the stimulus, as did students who used the metronome. However, neither speed of dictation, use of the metronome, nor number of repetitions had a high correlation with student achievement.