1. Pitch memory for music played backward: A perceptual learning study
Nestor Matthews, Kristin M. Reardon, & Megan Loveland
Department of Psychology, Denison University, Granville OH USA
Poster # D40
Discussion
Background and Purpose
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Our findings replicate Schellenberg and Trehub
(2003), showing that pitch memory is precise for familiar melodies. The present findings also show that pitch memory is above chance for ecologically atypical timbres (backward-played songs) despite a strong forward superiority effect for familiar tunes. This effect appears to be limited to melodies, as the results from Experiment 2 show no significant difference between the forward and backward conditions for single notes. When using novel melodies, results show direction specific training effects; either acoustically forward or backward superiority effects can be generated with training. Furthermore, participants appear to use a melody-specific strategy as evidenced in Exp3 by d’ values greater than zero for overlapping delta-cent values in the two melodies.
Previous data indicate that non-musicians can identify the original musical key of popular tunes with precision1, and that musical transients are cues to detecting differences in timbre2- a subjective quality of pitch. The present study explored the role of timbre when learning a tune’s original key.
Method
Exp.1 – Participants listened to original version excerpts of 4 popular tunes: “Mrs. Robinson,” “Imagine,” “I’ll Be There for You” and “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. Participants were then presented 160 pitch-altered excerpts to compare to the original. Excerpts were played forward and backward as well as with and without lyrics.
Exp. 2 – Participants made sharper/flatter judgments about two separate piano tones3 played forward and backward, and in 50 cent intervals higher and lower than the original, with a maximum of 250 cents.
Exp. 3 –Melodies (see below) incorporating the same tonalities as Exp. 2 were created, and altered according to the same cent shifts, played forward/backward. All participants were exposed to pre and post sessions, but split into 2 statistically similar groups for training, listening to either forward or backward excerpts only. The task was the same as in Exp. 2.
Experiment 3
The Bottom Line
Non-musicians show a strong forward-superiority effect when listening to familiar tunes, but can acquire an acoustical backward-superiority effect through training. Remarkably, performance is above chance for ecologically atypical timbres in both familiar and unfamiliar tunes. Results also show that individuals use a melody-specific strategy instead of a frequency-specific strategy when learning a tune’s original key.
References
1.Schellenberg & Trehub (2003) PMID:
2. Thayer, R.J. (1974). The effect of the attack transient on aural recognition of instrumental timbres. Psychology of Music, 2,
3.Pantev, Oostenveld, Engelien, Ross, Roberts, Hoke (1998) PMID:
Melody X
Melody Y