Comparison Melodies Research Articles

Shared cognitive resources between memory and attention during sound-sequence encoding.

You are on the phone, walking down a street. This daily situation calls for selective attention, allowing you to ignore surrounding irrelevant sounds, while trying to encode in memory the relevant information from the phone. Attention and memory are indeed two cognitive functions that are interacting constantly. However, their interaction is not yet well characterized during sound-sequence encoding. We independently manipulated both selective attention and working memory in a delayed-matching-to-sample of two tone-series, played successively in one ear. During the first melody presentation (memory encoding), weakly or highly distracting melodies were played in the other ear. Detection of the difference between the two comparison melodies could be easy or difficult, requiring low- or high-precision encoding, i.e., low or high memory load. Sixteen non-musician and 16 musician participants performed this new task. As expected, both groups of participants were less accurate in the difficult memory task and in difficult-to-ignore distractor conditions. Importantly, an interaction between memory-task difficulty and distractor difficulty was found in both groups. Non-musicians presented less difference between easy and difficult-to-ignore distractors in the difficult than in the easy memory task. On the contrary, musicians, with better performance than non-musicians, showed a greater difference between easy and difficult-to-ignore distractors in the difficult than in the easy memory task. In a second experiment including trials without a distractor, we could show that these effects are in line with the cognitive load theory. Taken together, these results speak for shared cognitive resources between working memory and attention during sound-sequence encoding.

Dissociating sensitivity from bias in the mini profile of music perception skills

The Mini Profile of Music Perception Skills (Mini-PROMS) is a widely used objective measure of musical competence that has been validated for online data collection [Law and Zentner, PLoS One 7, e52508 (2012); Zentner and Strauss, Ann. NY. Acad. Sci. 1400, 33–45 (2017)]. This measure involves determining whether a comparison melody is the same or different from a standard on a 5-point scale (“definitely different”, “probably different”, “I don’t know”, “probably same”, or “definitely same”). The traditional PROMS scoring method is to calculate a composite score, which differentially weights correct responses based on participant confidence. In this method, a high score can only be achieved with a confident response bias. The present study employed signal detection theory to calculate the participants’ sensitivity (d′), which is a bias-free measure of sensitivity if the signal and noise distributions (1) are normally distributed and (2) have roughly equal variance. 74 participants were tested on the Mini-PROMS with the purpose of calculating empirical ROC curves to test whether the assumptions of normality and variance are met. The study findings will provide important insight into how using different analysis methods might improve the validity of the Mini-PROMS. [Work supported by NIH grant R01 DC005216.]

An Empirically Derived Measure of Melodic Similarity

Music software applications often require similarity-finding measures. In this study, we describe an empirically derived measure for determining similarity between two melodies with multiple-note changes. The derivation of our final model involved three stages. In Stage 1, eight standard melodies were systematically varied with respect to pitch distance, pitch direction, tonal stability, metric salience and melodic contour. Comparison melodies with a one-note change were presented in transposed and nontransposed conditions. For the nontransposed condition, predictors of explained variance in similarity ratings were pitch distance, pitch direction and melodic contour. For the transposed condition, predictors were tonal stability and melodic contour. In Stage 2, we added the effects of primacy and recency. In Stage 3, comparison melodies with two-note changes were introduced, which allowed us to derive a more generalizable model capable of accommodating multiple-note changes. In a follow-up experiment, we show that our empirically derived measure of melodic similarity yielded superior performance to the Mongeau and Sankoff similarity measure. An empirically derived measure, such as the one described here, has the potential to extend the domain of similarity-finding methods in music information retrieval, on the basis of psychological predictors.

Development of the adaptive music perception test.

Despite vast amounts of research examining the influence of hearing loss on speech perception, comparatively little is known about its influence on music perception. No standardized test exists to quantify music perception of hearing-impaired (HI) persons in a clinically practical manner. This study presents the Adaptive Music Perception (AMP) test as a tool to assess important aspects of music perception with hearing loss. A computer-driven test was developed to determine the discrimination thresholds of 10 low-level physical dimensions (e.g., duration, level) in the context of perceptual judgments about musical dimensions: meter, harmony, melody, and timbre. In the meter test, the listener is asked to judge whether a tone sequence is duple or triple in meter. The harmony test requires that the listener make judgments about the stability of the chord sequences. In the melody test, the listener must judge whether a comparison melody is the same as a standard melody when presented in transposition and in the context of a chordal accompaniment that serves as a mask. The timbre test requires that the listener determines which of two comparison tones is different in timbre from a standard tone (ABX design). Twenty-one HI participants and 19 normal-hearing (NH) participants were recruited to carry out the music tests. Participants were tested twice on separate occasions to evaluate test-retest reliability. The HI group had significantly higher discrimination thresholds than the NH group in 7 of the 10 low-level physical dimensions: frequency discrimination in the meter test, dissonance and intonation perception in the harmony test, melody-to-chord ratio for both melody types in the melody test, and the perception of brightness and spectral irregularity in the timbre test. Small but significant improvement between test and retest was observed in three dimensions: frequency discrimination (meter test), dissonance (harmony test), and attack length (timbre test). All other dimensions did not show a session effect. Test-retest reliability was poor (<0.6) for spectral irregularity (timbre test); acceptable (>0.6) for pitch and duration (meter test), dissonance and intonation (harmony test), and melody-to-chord ratio I and II (melody test); and excellent (>0.8) for level (meter test) and attack (timbre test). The AMP test revealed differences in a wide range of music perceptual abilities between NH and HI listeners. The recognition of meter was more difficult for HI listeners when the listening task was based on frequency discrimination. The HI group was less sensitive to changes in harmony and had more difficulties with distinguishing melodies in a background of music. In addition, the thresholds to discriminate timbre were significantly higher for the HI group in brightness and spectral irregularity dimensions. The AMP test can be used as a research tool to further investigate music perception with hearing aids and compare the benefit of different music processing strategies for the HI listener. Future testing will involve larger samples with the inclusion of hearing aided conditions allowing for the establishment of norms so that the test might be appropriate for use in clinical practice.

Illusory Tempo Changes Due to Musical Characteristics

Recent research in music cognition has investigated ways in which different structural dimensions interact to influence perception and cognition. In the present research, various musical characteristics were manipulated to observe their potential influence on perceived tempo. In Experiment 1, participants were given a paired comparison task in which music-like patterns differed in both the pitch octave (high vs. low) and timbre (bright vs. dull) in which they were played. The results indicated that relative to their standard referents, comparison melodies were judged faster when displaying a higher pitch and/or a brighter timbre—even when no actual tempo differences existed. Experiment 2 converged on these findings by demonstrating that the perceived tempo of a melody was judged faster when it increased in pitch and/or loudness over time. These results are suggested to stem from an overgeneralization of certain structural correlations within the natural environment that, in turn, has implications for both musical performance and the processing of tempo information.

Temporal attention in the processing of short melodies: Evidence from event-related potentials

It has been speculated that temporal attention is involved in the perception of melodies within a complex tone pattern. However, it is not known so far, which processing steps are influenced. Goal of the present study was, therefore, to analyze the influence of temporal attention on the processing of single tones within a melody with behavioural and ERP measures. Participants heard a reference and a comparison melody, which could be either isochronous or non-isochronous, and had to indicate whether the pitch of a target tone was identical in the two melodies or not. When the temporal structure of the two melodies was identical, the allocation of temporal attention should improve the processing of the target tone of the comparison melody. For isochronous melodies, participants responded faster when the target tone was presented at an attended rather than at an unattended point in time. ERPs to attended target tones were associated with relatively more negative amplitudes between 140 and 220 ms. It may thus be suggested that regular temporal expectancies can be used to improve the processing of melody tones by acting upon early, perceptual processing steps. For non-isochronous melodies, responding was not influenced by temporal attention and ERPs were more negative to unattended target tones. This effect may be related to the violation of a regular temporal expectancy.

Recognition of transposed melodies by absolute‐pitch possessors

Abstract: Melody recognition experiments were carried out to investigate how absolute‐pitch listeners deal with melodies in a tonal context. In each trial, a short standard melody was presented auditorily with piano sounds in Experiment 1 and visually in the format of musical notation in Experiment 2, and a comparison melody followed, always in piano sounds. Listeners were required to determine whether the two melodies were the same or different with respect to relative pitch. The listeners who had absolute pitch performed more poorly in comparing transposed melodies than in comparing nontransposed melodies, and their performance for transposed melodies was significantly poorer than that of the listeners who did not have absolute pitch. These results suggest that absolute pitch may work to a serious disadvantage to musicians in dealing with melodies in different tonal contexts.

Recognition of notated melodies by possessors and nonpossessors of absolute pitch.

Musically trained listeners compared a notated melody presented visually and a comparison melody presented auditorily, and judged whether they were exactly the same or not, with respect to relative pitch. Listeners who had absolute pitch showed the poorest performance for melodies transposed to different pitch levels from the notated melodies, whereas they exhibited the highest performance for untransposed melodies. By comparison, the performance of melody recognition by listeners who did not have absolute pitch was not influenced by the actual pitch level at which melodies were played. These results suggest that absolute-pitch listeners tend to rely on absolute pitch even in recognizing transposed melodies, for which the absolute-pitch strategy is not useful.

Schema-based processing in auditory scene analysis.

What is the involvement of what we know in what we perceive? In this article, the contribution of melodic schema-based processes to the perceptual organization of tone sequences is examined. Two unfamiliar six-tone melodies, one of which was interleaved with distractor tones, were presented successively to listeners who were required to decide whether the melodies were identical or different. In one condition, the comparison melody was presented after the mixed sequence: a target melody interleaved with distractor tones. In another condition, it was presented beforehand, so that the listeners had precise knowledge about the melody to be extracted from the mixture. In the latter condition, recognition performance was better and a bias toward same responses was reduced, as compared with the former condition. A third condition, in which the comparison melody presented beforehand was transposed up in frequency, revealed that whereas the performance improvement was explained in part by absolute pitch or frequency priming, relative pitch representation (interval and/or contour structure) may also have played a role. Differences in performance as a function of mean frequency separation between target and distractor sequences, when listeners did or did not have prior knowledge about the target melody, argue for a functional distinction between primitive and schema-based processes in auditory scene analysis.

Tempo discrimination of musical patterns: effects due to pitch and rhythmic structure.

The purpose of this research was to investigate a set of factors that may influence the perceived rate of an auditory event. In a paired-comparison task, subjects were presented with a set of music-like patterns that differed in their relative number of contour changes and in the magnitude of pitch skips (Experiment 1) as well as in the compatibility of rhythmic accent structure with the arrangement of pitch relations (Experiment 2) Results indicated that, relative to their standard referents, comparison melodies were judged to unfold more slowly when they displayed more changes in pitch direction, greater pitch distances, and an incompatible rhythmic accent structure. These findings are suggested to stem from an imputed velocity hypothesis, in which people overgeneralize certain invariant relations that typically occur between melodic and temporal accent structure within Western music.

The Function of Accompanying Chords in the Recognition of Melodic Fragments

The function attributed to chords accompanying melodies depends on the theory of music perception adhered to. In a hierarchical model of music perception, chords can be viewed as local frames of reference that are used to code the tones of the melody they accompany. This view predicts that the recognition of a melody may be disturbed if the melody is presented with different chordal accompaniments. A less hierarchical conception of music perception may assume that the coding of the melodic line is relatively independent of the coding of the chords. This view leads to the prediction that melody recognition will not be influenced by the accompanying chords. These contrasting predictions were tested in an experiment in which subjects compared nine-tone melodies by using a standard-comparison paradigm. In different conditions, the standard and comparison melodies were presented with and without accompaniment, or with different accompaniments. Results show that melody recognition is unaffected by the variations in accompaniments, supporting the view that melody and accompaniment are processed relatively independently. Consequences for a model of music perception and, especially, for the perceptual function of chords are discussed.

Encoding Strategies for Tonal and Atonal Melodies

In this experiment, strategies of pitch encoding in the processing of melodies were investigated. Twenty-six students who were highly trained in music and twenty-six who were less well trained were instructed to make recognition judgments concerning melodies after a 12-sec retention interval. During each retention interval, subjects were exposed to one of four conditions (pause, listening to an interfering melody, shadowing nonsense syllables, and shadowing note names). Both the standard and the comparison melodies were six-tone series that had either a high- tonality structure ("tonal melody") or a low-tonality structure ("atonal melody"). The results (obtained by Newman-Keuls method) showed that recognition performance for the musically highly trained group was severely disrupted by the note names for the tonal melodies, while it was disrupted by the interfering melody for the atonal melodies. On the other hand, for the musically less well trained group, whose recognition performance was significantly worse than that of the highly trained group even in the Pause condition, there were no significant differences in disruptive effects between the different types of interfering materials. These findings suggest that the highly trained group could use a verbal (note name) encoding strategy for the pitches in the tonal melodies, and also rehearsal strategies (such as humming and whistling) for the atonal melodies, but that subjects in the less well trained group were unable to use any effective strategies to encode the melodies.

メロディの符号化と再認

This experiment was attempted to investigate the strategies of pitch coding in melody processing. Twenty-six musically trained and twenty-six musically naive subjects were instructed to make recognition for melodies after a 12-s retention interval, during which four conditions of interference (i.e. pause, interfering melody, nonsense syllables, musical note names) were interpolated. Both the standard and comparison melodies were 6-tone sequences which composed of high-tonality structure or low-tonality structure. It was found that the recognition of musicians was severely disrupted by the "note names" under a tonal melody, while it was disrupted by "interfering melody" under an atonal melody. On the other hand, the recognition of non-musicians was significantly worse than musicians, and there were no significant differences in disruptive effects between the interferences. These findings suggest that musicians could used verbal (note names) coding strategy for tonal melody and sensory pitch coding strategies (ex. humming, whistling) for atonal melody, but that non-musicians could not use any effective strategies for melody coding. Results were also discussed in relation to contour and pitch of melodies.

Tonal scale step encoding and the recognition of octave-scrambled melodies

Octave-scrambled melodies, having their pitches randomly distributed over several octaves, are difficult to recognize. Such melodies do not preserve pitch-interval patterns of undistorted melodies, but only their sequences of chromas—that quality of pitch shared by tones an octave apart. It was shown previously [W. J. Dowling, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. I 64, S146 (1978)] that such melodies can be recognized if preceded by a title or a melody cue (an unscrambled version). Here melody cues preceded unfamiliar tonal or atonal, scrambled or unscrambled test melodies. Unscrambled repetitions of tonal melodies were easier to recognize than atonal ones for all subjects. Even inexperienced subjects encoded scale steps of tonal cue melodies more effectively than they encoded pitches of atonal cue melodies. Musically experienced (but not inexperienced) subjects found tonal scrambled melodies easier to recognize than atonal. Subjects apparently tested encoded cue patterns against chromas of comparison melodies. Experienced subjects used that information more effectively to evaluate the chroma patterns of octave-scrambled melodies.

Some Effects of Rhythmic Context on Melody Recognition

The effects of rhythmic context on the ability of listeners to recognize slightly altered versions of 10-tone melodies were examined in three experiments. Listeners judged the melodic equivalence of two auditory patterns when their rhythms were either the same or different. Rhythmic variations produced large effects on a bias measure, indicating that listeners judged melodies to be alike if their rhythms were identical. However, neither rhythm nor pattern rate affected discriminability measures in the first study, in which rhythm was treated as a within subjects variable. The other two studies examined rhythmic context as a between subjects variable. In these, significant effects of temporal uncertainty due to the number and type of rhythms involved in a block of trials, as well as their assignment to standard and comparison melodies on a given trial, were apparent on both discriminability and bias measures. Results were interpreted in terms of the effect of temporal context on the rhythmic targeting of attention.

Recognition of transposed melodies: a key-distance effect in developmental perspective.

Four experiments examined the possibility of a key-distance effect in a transposition detection task. Subjects heard standard melodies followed by comparison melodies presented in the same key, a musically near key or a musically far key. The task was to recognize comparisons that were exact transpositions of the standards, rejecting nontranspositions. Results suggested a largely invariant key-distance effect with nontransposition comparisons (lures); same- and near-key lures evoked more false alarms than far-key lures. The variables of musical experience, age of subject, and familiarity of melody affected the level of transposition-recognition performance but did not consistently affect the size of the key-distance effect. The results support the psychological reality of key distance and are consistent with both musical and nonmusical-auditory theories of its effects. The key-distance effect was not found with transposition comparisons (targets), a result with implications for the separability of key and interval information in short-term memory for melodies.

Octave generalization and the consolidation of melodic information.

Subjects listened to a standard six-tone melody, followed by a comparison melody. The comparison melody was always transposed up four semitones from the standard, and this transposition was either exact or it was inexact while maintaining contour. Subjects judged whether or not the comparison melody formed an exact transposition of the standard. It was found that repetition of the standard melody, before presentation of the comparison, resulted in a significant improvement in performance compared with a condition featuring only a single presentation of the standard. A significant improvement also resulted when the repeated melody was displaced intact an octave higher or an octave lower. However, when the standard melody was repeated such that its components were displaced alternately to the higher and lower octaves, performance was significantly worse than when the standard melody was not repeated at all. Thus, in this paradigm, octave equivalence effects for single tones did not operate in the consolidation of melodic information.

Octave equivalence and the processing of melodic sequences

It is clear that a certain perceptual equivalence exists between tones standing in an octave relationship. However, it was previously found that subjects were unable to recognize a well-known melody when its component tones were placed randomly in any one of three octaves. In the present experiment, subjects listened to a standard melody, and then to a comparison melody; and they judged whether the comparison melody was an exact transposition of the standard or not. Exact repetition of the standard melody produced a significant improvement in performance, which also occurred when the repeated melody was displaced entirely to the octave above or the octave below that of the standard. However, when the melody was repeated such that its individual components were placed alternately in the octave above and the octave below, performance was significantly poorer than when the melody was not repeated at all. It appears that octave equivalence does not operate in short term melody acquisition any more than in long term melody recognition.

Contour, interval, and pitch recognition in memory for melodies.

Melodic contour (the sequence of ups and downs in a melody, regardless of interval size) expresses those aspects of a melody that are most essential to manipulation of that melody in various musical structures, e.g., folktunes and fugues. This is demonstrated by brief analyses of actual music. Two experiments demonstrate the role of melodic contour recognition in memory for melodies. Experiment 1 (2×3 factorial design) involved short-term memory with comparison melodies either transposed or not transposed from the key of the standard. Separate groups had the tasks of distinguishing (a) between same and different melodies; (b) between same melodies and ones with only the same contour; and (c) between melodies with the same contour and different ones. The effects of transposition and task and their interaction were significant (p&amp;lt;0.001). Untransposed melodies were recognized by their exact pitches, so that tasks (a) and (b) were equally easy. Contour recognition was more important with transposed melodies, so that task (b) was very difficult, and tasks (a) and (c) were easier. Task (c) was about equally difficult under both conditions. Experiment 2 involved recognition of distorted versions of familiar folktunes having the same length and rhythmic structure. In ascending order of recognizability, these distortions preserved merely the harmonic basis of the melody, the melodic contour, and the contour plus the relative sizes of successive intervals between notes (chi-square = 50.4, p&amp;lt;0.001).