Effects of syllable name change on pitch comparison

Zhiqiao Wang,Qingfen Hu

doi:10.1017/prp.2019.25

Abstract

Previous research has found that musicians’ pitch judgments, unlike non-musicians’, are influenced by syllable names. Although non-musicians fail to identify absolute pitches, they acknowledge the direction of pitch change. The present experiment investigated whether non-musicians’ judgments of pitch change can be influenced by the direction of syllable name change. Moreover, we examined the spatial, magnitudinal and sequential nature of pitches and syllable names. Participants ( N = 33) were asked to hear two successive tones sung by syllable name and to judge the direction of pitch change by pressing vertically arranged buttons. Participants’ accuracy of pitch change judging was found to be influenced by the direction of syllable name change. However, the response location was not found to interact with pitch change or syllable name change. The distance effect was found in pitches but not in syllable names. A sequence effect was found that trials with early-in-sequence syllable names were responded faster than trials with late-in-sequence syllable names. These results suggest that syllable names can influence non-musicians’ pitch judgments in a relative context. We suggest that it is the sequential order of syllable names that is the product of cultural activities that interfere with the judgment of pitch change.

Highlights

Previous research has found that musicians’ pitch judgments, unlike non-musicians’, are influenced by syllable names
We tested our main hypothesis concerning the interference between the syllable name change and the pitch change by examining both accuracy and response time in different syllable name change and pitch change conditions in a pitch comparison task
Participants were more accurate when syllable name change and pitch change were congruent compared to when they were not. This suggests that the direction of syllable name change was automatically represented when non-musicians judged the direction of pitch change

Summary

Introduction

Previous research has found that musicians’ pitch judgments, unlike non-musicians’, are influenced by syllable names. A sequence effect was found that trials with early-in-sequence syllable names were responded faster than trials with late-in-sequence syllable names These results suggest that syllable names can influence non-musicians’ pitch judgments in a relative context. We suggest that it is the sequential order of syllable names that is the product of cultural activities that interfere with the judgment of pitch change. Itoh, Suwazono, Arao, Miyazaki, and Nakada (2005) provided evidence for the existence of this fixed syllable name-pitch relationship using an auditory Stroop paradigm They showed nine auditory stimuli (i.e., C3, D3, and E3 sung with dol, ray, and mi), in which the syllable name either corresponds to the pitch or does not, to AP possessors and asked them to report the tone’s pitch. In fixed dol-solmization, syllable names correspond with pitches one-to-one; in movable dol-solmization, the relation between syllable names and pitches are changeable, the covariation remains under a certain key

Methods

Results

Conclusion