Formal Musical Training Research Articles

Individual differences in musical ability among adults with no music training.

Good musical abilities are typically considered to be a consequence of music training, such that they are studied in samples of formally trained individuals. Here, we asked what predicts musical abilities in the absence of music training. Participants with no formal music training (N = 190) completed the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, measures of personality and cognitive ability, and the Musical Ear Test (MET). The MET is an objective test of musical abilities that provides a Total score and separate scores for its two subtests (Melody and Rhythm), which require listeners to determine whether standard and comparison auditory sequences are identical. MET scores had no associations with personality traits. They correlated positively, however, with informal musical experience and cognitive abilities. Informal musical experience was a better predictor of Melody than of Rhythm scores. Some participants (12%) had Total scores higher than the mean from a sample of musically trained individuals (⩾6 years of formal training), tested previously by Correia et al. Untrained participants with particularly good musical abilities (top 25%, n = 51) scored higher than trained participants on the Rhythm subtest and similarly on the Melody subtest. High-ability untrained participants were also similar to trained ones in cognitive ability, but lower in the personality trait openness-to-experience. These results imply that formal music training is not required to achieve musician-like performance on tests of musical and cognitive abilities. They also suggest that informal music practice and music-related predispositions should be considered in studies of musical expertise.

The impact of formal musical training on speech intelligibility performance—Implications for music pedagogy in high-consequence industries

In high-risk domains, accurate and timely communications while multitasking are necessary for safety and efficiency. Complex musical/acoustic environments cause hindered communication and awareness. This study used an audio-visual multi-tasking paradigm that examined speech intelligibility and if formal music training (FMT) can mitigate these challenges. Twenty-five students (16F/9M) from Vanderbilt University participated with varying levels of FMT: no FMT, 1–3 years, 3–5 years, and 5+ years of FMT. The study found that the degree of FMT significantly impacted non-response (p-value < 0.001). Among participants with no FMT, the presence of background music increased the odds of non-response by 1.5-fold (95% CI: 0.95, 2.37), conversely, participants with 5+ years of FMT had no decrease (OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.69, 1.36), showing that non-response in the presence of music worsens with each subgroup until 5+ years of FMT. The accuracy for all groups was similar (p = 0.74) and the background music decreased accuracy for all groups (OR: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.58, 0.76). Although levels of accuracy were similar for all, the 5+ FMT group responded less frequently, which may indicate increased working memory (i.e., phonological loop) and meta-cognition, a valuable skill in high-risk industry. Future research can explore the pedagogy of musical training.

Enhanced recognition of vocal emotions in individuals with naturally good musical abilities.

Music training is widely assumed to enhance several nonmusical abilities, including speech perception, executive functions, reading, and emotion recognition. This assumption is based primarily on cross-sectional comparisons between musicians and nonmusicians. It remains unclear, however, whether training itself is necessary to explain the musician advantages, or whether factors such as innate predispositions and informal musical experience could produce similar effects. Here, we sought to clarify this issue by examining the association between music training, music perception abilities and vocal emotion recognition. The sample (N = 169) comprised musically trained and untrained listeners who varied widely in their musical skills, as assessed through self-report and performance-based measures. The emotion recognition tasks required listeners to categorize emotions in nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., laughter, crying) and in speech prosody. Music training was associated positively with emotion recognition across tasks, but the effect was small. We also found a positive association between music perception abilities and emotion recognition in the entire sample, even with music training held constant. In fact, untrained participants with good musical abilities were as good as highly trained musicians at recognizing vocal emotions. Moreover, the association between music training and emotion recognition was fully mediated by auditory and music perception skills. Thus, in the absence of formal music training, individuals who were "naturally" musical showed musician-like performance at recognizing vocal emotions. These findings highlight an important role for factors other than music training (e.g., predispositions and informal musical experience) in associations between musical and nonmusical domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Tiny dancers: Effects of musical familiarity and tempo on children's free dancing.

Around the world, musical engagement frequently involves movement. Most adults easily clap or sway to a wide range of tempos, even without formal musical training. The link between movement and music emerges early-young infants move more rhythmically to music than speech, but do not reliably align their movements to the beat. Laboratory work encouraging specific motor patterns (e.g., drumming, tapping) demonstrates that toddlers and young children's movements are affected by music in a rudimentary way, such that they move faster to faster rhythms (tempo flexibility). In the present study, we developed and implemented a novel home recording method to investigate how musical familiarity and tempo affect children's naturalistic free-dance movements. Caregivers made home recordings of their children's responses to an experimenter-created playlist (N = 83, age range = 1.25 to 3.91 years, Mage = 2.39 years, SD = .74 years; 41 girls, 42 boys; 75% of household incomes > $90 000 CAD). Children listened to 1-min excerpts of their favorite music and unfamiliar, genre-matched music, each played at 90, 120, and 150 bpm (pitch constant; order randomized). Children moved faster to faster music and demonstrated tempo flexibility for both favorite and unfamiliar music. Favorite music encouraged more smiling across tempo conditions than unfamiliar music, as well as more dancing in the slowest tempo condition. Results demonstrate that young children's self-selected movements are affected by musical tempo and familiarity. We also demonstrate the usefulness of a naturalistic home recording method for assessing early auditory-motor integration. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Auditory and visual mental imagery in musicians and non-musicians

Mental imagery plays an important role in various contexts of life, involving cognitive resources such as memory, learning, spatial representation, and reasoning. The vividness of mental images depends on different factors, including personal expertise in a certain field. For instance, musicians have been found to possess better auditory imagery abilities than non-musicians for both musical and non-musical sounds. Only a few studies have tried to find out if this advantage is selective for auditory stimuli, however, with contradictory results so far (i.e., some studies supporting an advantage for mental imagery in general and some supporting an advantage for auditory mental imagery in particular). This study therefore investigated auditory and visual mental imagery in individuals with and without formal musical training. Thirty-six formally trained musicians, 33 self-taught musicians, and 33 non-musicians completed two questionnaires assessing the vividness of their auditory and visual mental imagery. They also completed measures of aptitude for music and general cognitive abilities. Both groups of musicians reported greater vividness of auditory (non-musical) imagery, but not visual imagery, than non-musicians. Thus musical experience, regardless of the type of training undergone by musicians, is linked to superior self-reported auditory mental imagery for everyday sounds, but not mental imagery in general.

Musical Aptitude as a Variable in the Assessment of Working Memory and Selective Attention Tasks.

Background and ObjectivesThe influence of musical aptitude on cognitive test performance in musicians is a long-debated research question. Evidence points to the low performance of nonmusicians in visual and auditory cognitive tasks (working memory and attention) compared with musicians. This cannot be generalized to all nonmusicians, as a sub-group in this population can have innate musical abilities even without any formal musical training. The present study aimed to study the effect of musical aptitude on the working memory and selective attention.Subjects and MethodsThree groups of 20 individuals each (a total of 60 participants), including trained-musicians, nonmusicians with good musical aptitude, and nonmusicians with low musical aptitude, participated in the present study. Cognitive-based visual (Flanker’s selective attention test) and auditory (working memory tests: backward digit span and operation span) tests were administered.ResultsMANOVA (followed by ANOVA) revealed a benefit of musicianship and musical aptitude on backward digit span and Flanker’s reaction time (p<0.05). Discriminant function analyses showed that the groups could be effectively (accuracy, 80%) segregated based on the backward digit span and Flanker’s selective attention test. Trained musicians and nonmusicians with good musical aptitude were distinguished as one cluster and nonmusicians with low musical aptitude formed another cluster, hinting the role of musical aptitude in working memory and selective attention.ConclusionsNonmusicians with good musical aptitude can have enhanced working memory and selective attention skills like musicians. Hence, caution is required when these individuals are included as controls in cognitive-based visual and auditory experiments.

Vestibular System Eletrophysiology: An Analysis of the Relationship between Hearing and Movement.

Introduction Knowledge about the positive effects that music and dance bring, in its various forms, to the healthy human brain, is important not only in the context of basic neuroscience but may also strongly affect practices in neurorehabilitation. Objective To verify the relationship between hearing and movement and, specifically, to analyze the interference of professional dance practice and formal musical training in the magnitude of the vestibule-cervical and vestibular reflexes. Method The sample consisted of 92 subjects, aged between 18 and 35 years old, 31 professional musicians, 31 ballet dancers, and 30 control subjects. Only subjects with normal hearing sensitivity were included. Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP) was recorded in the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP) was recorded in the lower oblique muscle of the eye, using tone-bursts (500Hz). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) or Kruskall-Wallis tests were performed. Results The cVEMP presented earlier and higher amplitude waves when recorded in the group of dancers, with a significant difference between all tested groups for latency and amplitude of the N23 wave; the comparison was restricted between dancers and control groups, with no difference between ballet dancers and musicians. The N1 wave of the oVEMP presented lower latencies in dancers than in musicians and controls ( p = 0.001). No significant differences were found between the groups for the P1 wave. Conclusion Greater magnitudes of vestibule-cervical reflex responses and faster vestibule-ocular reflex responses were observed in dancers. Dance practice provides greater development of the vestibular system, but musical training also contributes to the magnitude of these responses.

ZDOLNOŚCI SŁUCHOWE U OSÓB Z FORMALNYM WYKSZTAŁCENIEM MUZYCZNYM I BEZ TAKIEGO WYKSZTAŁCENIA

IntroductionAuditory perception can be enhanced by musical training and practice. Considering the multiple brain areas involved in musical learning, good auditory perceptual skills can contribute to phonological awareness, speech recognition in the presence of noise, reading, syllable recognition, and other language skills.Material and methodsThere were 30 adults between 18 and 27 years old who participated. They were divided into two groups: 15 individuals without formal musical training (Non-Musicians) and 15 individuals with 5 years or more of formal musical training (Musicians), paired by gender and age. Procedures used for assessing their hearing skills were the Duration Pattern test, Staggered Spondaic Word test, Masking Level Difference test, and Dichotic Consonant–Vowel test.ResultsIn all tests, the Musicians group showed a higher average score than the Non-Musicians. In the MLD test, the average level difference was 3 dB higher for the Musicians than for the Non-Musicians (p = 0.001). There were also statistically significant mean differences between the groups for the DP test, SSW test in the right ear, and DCV test (number of errors).ConclusionsIndividuals with formal musical training show better auditory attention abilities, which are important for developing good listening skills, resulting in good communication and linguistic performance compared to individuals without prior musical training.

Undergraduate students with musical training report less conflict in interpersonal relationships

Recent research has shown that formal musical training has a wealth of benefits in terms of cognition, mental health, social skills, and even speech perception. Of these benefits, there is strong support for a relationship between formal musical training and an improved ability to recognize emotions in speech prosody. Given this connection, interpersonal relationships stand to benefit from improved communication efficacy, which includes an improved ability to recognize emotions in speech. Interpersonal relationships rely on successful expression and interpretation of emotions in speech. If formal musical training can improve the perception of emotions in speech, it should indirectly benefit interpersonal relationship quality. The current study collected data from 197 undergraduate students about their formal musical training and interpersonal relationship quality through an online survey. The results showed that formal musical training accounted for 8% of the difference in relationship conflict but did not benefit relationship support or depth. While musical expertise does not necessarily improve relationship quality overall, it may help reduce conflict in relationships. Further research is needed, with participants who have greater musical expertise, to clarify the relationship between formal musical training and relationship conflict.

Impact of more than three years of Carnatic music training on the working memory: an ERP study

Objective The impact of music training on development of various cognitive domains are extensively studied and established, however, the mechanism underlying such phenomenon is still unknown. In the present study, the role of more than three years of Carnatic music (a form of Indian music) training on working memory (WM) was tested using an event related potential (ERP) and a standard WM test. Method A total of 30 individuals comprised of 15 singers of age range between 16–30 years (M = 23 ± 3.2 years) and 15 non-singers aged between 16–30 years (M = 24 ± 2.9 years) participated in this study. These singers had overall 3 to 5 years of formal Carnatic music training experience. Short-term auditory working memory was assessed using Forward and backward digit span task and it was administered using the APEX software. Cortical activities such as attention, discrimination, and memory were testedusing P300and test was performed using Intelligent Hearing System. Results The results revealed that the mean P300 amplitude of singers (M = 5.80, SD = 2.09) was significantly higher compared to the non-singer (M = 3.50, SD = 1.44), t(25)=3.3, p < .05. The Mann-Whitney U-Test was administered and a significant difference between singers and non-singers (|z| = 3.135, p < .05) was observed for digit backward task. However, for digit forward test no significant difference (|z| = 1.523, p > .05) was obtained. Conclusion Findings of this study suggests that more than three years of Carnatic singing experience can enhance the neural coding to discriminate subtle differences leading to enhance working memory capacity.

Guest Editor’s Introduction

Guest Editor’s Introduction Chris van Rhyn Presenting this collection of articles about new music from Africa requires contextualization and reflection on its composition and contents, and the definition of “new music.” Although the idea was never to be representative (any such attempt on a continent this large and diverse would be futile and misguided), the contributions I received turned out to focus on and come from smaller subsections of the continent than anticipated: Sub-Saharan, English-speaking Africa, and particularly Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. (However, not all the authors come from or are based in Africa.) On the one hand, this speaks to where my contacts are situated and context as an academic in the English-speaking world. On the other hand, it speaks to the significant disconnect between African countries where the business of music academia is concerned—some favor looking towards the global North; whereas, others aim their research mostly at local audiences. Also, in some African countries, there is almost no such business of which to speak. The establishment of Conservatories or University Music Departments based on the Western model depended on the priorities of colonial powers or post-independence governments’ colonial-inspired nationalist ideals, and socio-economic circumstances. In South Africa, the Apartheid government facilitated the disproportionately wide establishment of such training facilities. Despite Egypt [End Page 5] having a long history of formal musical training in the Western guise, North Africa is notably absent from this volume. The contributions’ contents may or may not depart from what is usually seen in Perspectives of New Music for various reasons. The extensive, unexplored archive of works by composers from Africa that do not yet form part of broader discourses sometimes requires basic research that would otherwise not have been necessary. In other cases, where composers have had more international exposure or have been the subjects of detailed scrutiny at a national level, authors could engage in more detailed analyses at a higher level of abstraction. Music studies in Africa are known for purposefully disregarding strict divisions between Music Theory, Analysis, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, which is evident in the articles presented here. The definition of “new music” (or “art music” or “contemporary classical music”) is fluid. It includes film music, contemporary choral music with strong roots in Western hymn traditions, and music of pre-colonial origins performed outside their traditional contexts or applied in new musical contexts. The first two contributions both focus on aspects of language in West African choral art music. Joshua Amuah and Hilarius Wuaku consider code-switching—a linguistic-compositional strategy already familiar in popular Ghanaian music—in choral art music by contemporary Ghanaian composers. Their article aims to tease out the reasons for these composers’ implementation of this strategy and how it aids in communicating with audiences. Short biographies of the composers in question serve to inform readers less familiar with the Ghanaian art music composition scene. Aaron Carter-Enyi considers the significance of contour and transformational theory in settings of tone language texts through his analyses of two secular choral works by Nigerian composers. These works, Óbì Dím̀kpà (1980) by Laz Èkwúèmé and Ọmọlúàbí (2018) by Ayọ̀ Olúrántí, are based on local proverbs. Issues concerning musical style and identity are approached in three diverse ways. Wilhelm Delport aims to draw Schoenberg’s notion of Abfallmaterials into conventional harmonic analysis by outlining the critical role quartal compounds play in the South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr’s compositional language. The author analyzes Hofmeyr’s Sonata per Pianoforte (2011) for this purpose. William Fourie presents a reading of Andile Khumalo’s Bells Die Out (2013), an ensemble work by a young, Black South African composer who received European and American compositional training. Fourie’s reading argues for viewing Khumalo’s music as challenging racially defined expectations, not simply through a wholesale adoption of a European style, but by cautiously resisting the conventionalities of [End Page 6] what appears to be a European style on the surface. Emaeyak Sylvanus explores the interconnectedness between Nollywood film music identity formations and three contexts in which these identities manifest. Following this, he proposes the notion of the “Nollywood persistent...

Caring For, About, and With: Exploring Musical Meaningfulness Among Suzuki Students and Parents

An investigation of the relationships between empathy, music learning, and shared music values may provide new insights into the ways that musical meaningfulness and the symbiotic eudaimonic ideal – “flourishing of oneselfandof others” – might be cultivated. We investigated the relationships between parent perceptions of children’s empathy, parent beliefs and values about music, and formal Suzuki training over a period of 6 months, to understand ways in which shared music learning experiences might relate to emotional and musical connections between parents and children. Participants were parents of 48 Suzuki students at a structured Suzuki school in the Midwestern United States. We designed a survey containing an adapted version of the Griffith Empathy Measure for children with additional questions regarding family demographics and values regarding music education. Participants completed the survey at the start of the lesson year, and again 6 months later. Children who persisted in group lessons throughout the study began with significantly higher empathy scores, compared to those children who did not participate in group lessons. Children’s initial empathy scores were significantly positively correlated with parents’ ratings of the importance of music instruction generally, and of Suzuki instruction particularly, to their family. A significant but moderate correlation was found between initial empathy scores and the belief that music would help the child succeed in other areas. This exploratory study highlights potential relationships between family music values, children’s empathy, and participation in group music-making. Our findings are consistent with research demonstrating that child and parent personalities predict the duration of formal music training for children. They also support the philosophy of musical meaningfulness, by suggesting ways in which meaningful connections may be forged simultaneously between people who care for one another, and between people and the activities they care about. Our results point to the importance of providing a variety of music learning activities and structures that reflect the personality, needs, and interests of children and parents. We offer specific recommendations for future research to draw further insights and implications about these relationships.

Emotion and expertise: how listeners with formal music training use cues to perceive emotion

Although studies of musical emotion often focus on the role of the composer and performer, the communicative process is also influenced by the listener’s musical background or experience. Given the equivocal nature of evidence regarding the effects of musical training, the role of listener expertise in conveyed musical emotion remains opaque. Here we examine emotional responses of musically trained listeners across two experiments using (1) eight measure excerpts, (2) musically resolved excerpts and compare them to responses collected from untrained listeners in Battcock and Schutz (2019). In each experiment 30 participants with six or more years of music training rated perceived emotion for 48 excerpts from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) using scales of valence and arousal. Models of listener ratings predict more variance in trained vs. untrained listeners across both experiments. More importantly however, we observe a shift in cue weights related to training. Using commonality analysis and Fischer Z score comparisons as well as margin of error calculations, we show that timing and mode affect untrained listeners equally, whereas mode plays a significantly stronger role than timing for trained listeners. This is not to say the emotional messages are less well recognized by untrained listeners—simply that training appears to shift the relative weight of cues used in making evaluations. These results clarify music training’s potential impact on the specific effects of cues in conveying musical emotion.

Cross-domain effect of pitch processing in lexical and melodic contexts reflected by non-musicians: An MEG study

The pitch processing of language and music is generally considered engaging overlapped neural correlates. Previous studies on musicians showed that the ability of pitch processing in music could be transferred to language. It is known that music training can facilitate neural processing of speech, however, the underlying neural mechanisms of pitch processing of language and music are not fully understood, especially in non-musicians. Using magnetoencephalography, we presented a pitch anomaly paradigm which consists of language/music phrases ending in either congruous or incongruous tones/pitches to non-musicians. We found the distinctive brain activity patterns in two groups with high and low musical pitch perceptual abilities. The brain-behavior results showed a positive correlation between the performance of musical pitch tasks and the activation of the left frontotemporal cortical regions elicited by lexical tones. Our results suggested that the cross-domain effect of language and music could be generalized to people without formal music training.

The effect of physical movement on observers’ perception of musical quality in a choral performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of singers’ physical movement on observers’ perception of musical quality at varying levels of physical expressivity during a choral performance. In addition, the relationship between observers’ levels of formal music training and their perception of musical quality was of interest. All observers ( N = 164) viewed and rated a set of three video scenarios of a choral performance. Each scenario was designed to represent three levels of physical movement: minimal (minimal body and facial movement), moderate (moderate head and facial movement), and high level (full body and facial movement). Results indicated that differing levels of singers’ physical movement and facial expressions were strongly related to observers’ perception of the musical quality. However, when analyzing this effect by observers’ formal musical background, no significant relationship was found between ratings of the musical quality and physical movement among musically trained observers across all three conditions, suggesting that musically trained observers may be less influenced by their visual perception when evaluating a music performance.

Stream segregation revisited: Dynamic listening and influences of emotional context on stream perception and attention.

A classical experiment of auditory stream segregation is revisited, reconceptualising perceptual ambiguity in terms of affordances and musical engagement. Specifically, three experiments are reported that investigate how listeners' perception of auditory sequences change dynamically depending on emotional context. The experiments show that listeners adapt their attention to higher or lower pitched streams (Experiments 1 and 2) and the degree of auditory stream integration or segregation (Experiment 3) in accordance with the presented emotional context. Participants with and without formal musical training show this influence, although to differing degrees (Experiment 2). Contributing evidence to the literature on interactions between emotion and cognition, these experiments demonstrate how emotion is an intrinsic part of music perception and not merely a product of the listening experience.

Sketching music: Exploring melodic similarity and contrast using a digital tabletop

In this article, we investigate the effectiveness of a purposely built Digital Tabletop Musical Instruments (DTMI) in helping novices and casual users to explore music composition. Our participants explored how melodic similarity and contrast can convey narrative through musical structure in sessions involving one participant and one tutor to guide the session. We structured the sessions as a combination of open-ended discussions and increasingly open-ended music-making exercises, culminating in the main task: Invent a short story and compose a melody to describe it. We found that the combination of a structured tutor-led activity and an approachable technology allowed our participants to explore the relationship between their ideas of similarity and contrast, the ways these concepts are manifested in melody, and the ways they can help describe a narrative. The hands-on activities provided adequate scaffolding for discussing the concepts and contextualizing them within music. Lastly, by not requiring any formal musical or instrumental training, the DTMI allowed the participants to make music while discussing similarity and contrast in a comfortable and continuous way.

Autodidacticism and Music: Do Self-Taught Musicians Exhibit the Same Auditory Processing Advantages as Formally Trained Musicians?

Multiple studies have demonstrated that musicians have enhanced auditory processing abilities compared to non-musicians. In these studies, musicians are usually defined as having received some sort of formal music training. One issue with this definition is that there are many musicians who are self-taught. The goal of the current study was to determine if self-taught musicians exhibit different auditory enhancements as their formally trained counterparts. Three groups of participants were recruited: formally trained musicians, who received formal music training through the conservatory or private lessons; self-taught musicians, who learned to play music through informal methods, such as with books, videos, or by ear; non-musicians, who had little or no music experience. Auditory processing abilities were assessed using a speech-in-noise task, a passive pitch oddball task done while recording electrical brain activity, and a melodic tonal violation task, done both actively and passively while recording electrical brain activity. For the melodic tonal violation task, formally trained musicians were better at detecting a tonal violation compared to self-taught musicians, who were in turn better than non-musicians. The P600 evoked by a tonal violation was enhanced in formally trained musicians compared to non-musicians. The P600 evoked by an out-of-key note did not differ between formally trained and self-taught musicians, while the P600 evoked by an out-of-tune note was smaller in self-taught musicians compared to formally trained musicians. No differences were observed between the groups for the other tasks. This pattern of results suggests that music training format impacts auditory processing abilities in musical tasks; however, it is possible that these differences arose due to pre-existing factors and not due to the training itself.

Effect of Music Training on Categorical Perception of Speech and Music.

Background and ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of music training on the characteristics of auditory perception of speech and music. The perception of speech and music stimuli was assessed across their respective stimulus continuum and the resultant plots were compared between musicians and non-musicians.Subjects and MethodsThirty musicians with formal music training and twenty-seven non-musicians participated in the study (age: 20 to 30 years). They were assessed for identification of consonant-vowel syllables (/da/ to /ga/), vowels (/u/ to /a/), vocal music note (/ri/ to /ga/), and instrumental music note (/ri/ to /ga/) across their respective stimulus continuum. The continua contained 15 tokens with equal step size between any adjacent tokens. The resultant identification scores were plotted against each token and were analyzed for presence of categorical boundary. If the categorical boundary was found, the plots were analyzed by six parameters of categorical perception; for the point of 50% crossover, lower edge of categorical boundary, upper edge of categorical boundary, phoneme boundary width, slope, and intercepts.ResultsOverall, the results showed that both speech and music are perceived differently in musicians and non-musicians. In musicians, both speech and music are categorically perceived, while in non-musicians, only speech is perceived categorically.ConclusionsThe findings of the present study indicate that music is perceived categorically by musicians, even if the stimulus is devoid of vocal tract features. The findings support that the categorical perception is strongly influenced by training and results are discussed in light of notions of motor theory of speech perception.

Classical Rondos and Sonatas as Stylistic Categories

Sonata and rondo movements are often defined in terms of large-scale form, yet in the classical era, rondos were also identified according to their lively, cheerful character. We hypothesized that sonatas and rondos could be categorized based on stylistic features, and that rondos would involve more acoustic cues for happiness (e.g., higher average pitch height and higher average attack rate). In a corpus analysis, we examined paired movement openings from 180 instrumental works, composed between 1770 and 1799. Rondos had significantly higher pitch height and attack rate, as predicted, and there were also significant differences related to dynamics, meter, and cadences. We then conducted an experiment involving participants with at least 5 years of formal music training or less than 6 months of formal music training. Participants listened to 120 15-second audio clips, taken from the beginnings of movements in our corpus. After a training phase, they attempted to categorize the excerpts (2AFC task). D-prime scores were significantly higher than chance levels for both groups, and in post-experiment questionnaires, participants without music training reported that rondos sounded happier than sonatas. Overall, these results suggest that classical formal types have distinct stylistic and affective conventions.