Abstract
In Western tonal music, voice leading (VL) and harmony are two central concepts influencing whether a musical sequence is perceived as well-formed. However, experimental studies have primarily focused on the effect of harmony on the cognitive processing of polyphonic music. The additional effect of VL remains unknown, despite music theory suggesting VL to be tightly connected to harmony. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate and compare the effects of both VL and harmony on listener expectations. Using a priming paradigm and a choice reaction time task, participants (N = 34) were asked to indicate whether the final chord in a sequence had a different timbre than the preceding ones (cover task), with the experimental conditions being good and poor VL or harmony, respectively. An analysis with generalised mixed effects models revealed a significant influence of both VL and harmony on reaction times (RTs). Moreover, pairwise comparison showed significantly faster RTs when VL was good as compared to both VL and harmony being poor, which was not the case when only harmony was good. This study thus provides evidence for the additional importance of VL for the processing of Western polyphonic music.
Highlights
One core issue of music cognition concerns the processing of chord sequences and their underlying syntax[1,2], which in Western tonal music consists of two central components: voice leading (VL) and harmony
The results of the present study challenge the widely held view that harmony is the main component in guiding listener expectations in Western polyphonic tonal music and provide evidence that VL is another crucial component, one that may be even more important than harmony
The findings are consistent with previous studies according to which music theoretically expected endings of a sequence yield faster reaction times (RTs)[11,12]
Summary
One core issue of music cognition concerns the processing of chord sequences and their underlying syntax[1,2], which in Western tonal music consists of two central components: voice leading (VL) and harmony. A priming effect can be observed when a specific stimulus influences the processing of a subsequent target stimulus, which becomes apparent through different reaction times (RTs) for different degrees of expectation[9]. Two types of target chords were used, a tonic chord and a subdominant chord, the latter being expected to lead to less accurate and slower responses after a dominant prime. The key interest lay in the comparison of RTs for targets with either VL or harmony being good, and the other poor By using this experimental setup, the cognitive load and the degree of mental anticipation reveal participants’ expectancy to better understand the mechanisms involved in the processing of musical syntax
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