Perception of musical and lexical tones by musicians and nonmusicians

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between musical and linguistic pitch perception. We asked whether the ability to identify musical tones is associated with the ability to identify lexical tones. English-speaking musicians and nonmusicians were asked to identify Taiwanese level tones produced by multiple speakers. Because pitch range varies across speakers and the tones were produced in isolation, participants had to estimate relative pitch height without cues typically available for speaker normalization. The musician participants were also asked to identify synthesized musical tones without a reference pitch. The results showed that both musicians and nonmusicians were able to identify Taiwanese tones above chance, but only for tones in the extremes of the speakers’ overall pitch range. Preliminary data from the musicians show that musical tone identification accuracy was low and not associated with accuracy in the Taiwanese tone task. Implications of these findings for the music-speech relationship are discussed.