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Relationship between Pitch and Rhythm Perception with Tonal Sequences

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Presentation on theme: "Relationship between Pitch and Rhythm Perception with Tonal Sequences"— Presentation transcript:

1 Relationship between Pitch and Rhythm Perception with Tonal Sequences
Sandra J. Guzman1, Robert Almeida1, Karson Glass1, Cody Elston1, Valeriy Shafiro2 & Stanley Sheft2 1Audio Arts & Acoustics, Columbia College, Chicago IL; 2Communication Disorders & Sciences, Rush University, Chicago IL Results A wide performance range was obtained in all conditions. Effect of condition was significant for both systematic [F(4,36)=7.32, p<.001] and random [F(4,32)=19.78, p<.001] button ordering, with performance significantly better in the Pitch Only than Rhythm Only condition in both sets (Figs. 2 & 3). With systematic button ordering (Fig. 2), there was no evidence of interaction between pitch and rhythm processing in sequence reconstruction. With random button ordering (Fig. 3), trends for pitch and rhythm interaction were more apparent with both a significant additive benefit and significant deleterious effect of extraneous rhythmic randomization. Between-group analysis showed neither a significant effect of button ordering [F(1,17)=0.75, p=.40] nor an interaction between button ordering and sequence type [F(4,68)=1.58, p=.19]. Performance was roughly constant across tone position in the sequence for both types of button ordering (Figs. 4 & 5). The only significant effect of position [F(3,27)=3.40, p=.032] was obtained with systematic button ordering in the Rhythm Only condition with a performance decrement in positions 3 & 4 relative position 1 (Fig. 4, 2nd panel). There were no significant relationships between either extent of musical training or current music practicing and task performance. Performance in all conditions significantly contributed to k-cluster subject analysis with dispersion analysis showing largest [F(1,17)=166.22] and smallest [F(1,17)=9.46] influences of results from the Pitch Only and Rhythm Only results, respectively. Fig. 6 shows cluster separation by mean pitch rather than rhythmic performance. The correlation between mean pitch and rhythm scores was 0.73. Introduction Sheft et al. (2013) found a relationship between training on a task requiring reconstruction of tonal sequences and aspects of speech perception. Stimuli were constructed with randomly selected frequencies and durations for sequence tones so that both pitch contour and rhythm defined each sequence. Past work has shown varying degrees of relationship between pitch and rhythm perception (e.g., Sorkin, 1987; Palmer and Krumhansl, 1987; Peretz and Kolinsky, 1993; Bigand, 1997; Boltz,1998), with most studies using longer-duration stimuli corresponding to musical phrases. In the context of speech perception, interaction between pitch and rhythm processing in a training regimen may have consequences relative to issues of speech variance and perceptual constancy. Consequently, current work investigated the relationship between pitch and rhythm processing with relatively brief four-tone sequences shown in past work relevant to speech, with memory demands varied across condition sets. Method Subjects: 19 normal-hearing undergraduate students (age range: 19 – 35 yrs; mean: 22.7)) with varying extent of musical training (0 – 8 yrs; mean: 3.4) and current practice (hrs./week practice: 0 – 16; mean: 5.3). Pattern-Reconstruction Task: with four-tone frequency patterns, the listening task was to assemble the constituent tones in the correct order (Fig. 1). Subjects heard the target sequence only once, but could listen to both constituent tones and their interim reconstruction of the sequence as often as wanted. Correct-answer feedback for each sequence tone was provided after every trial. In each condition, data were collected from a single 25-trial block which was preceded by four practice trials. Stimulus level was 75 dB SPL. Conditions: Identical Target and Response Sequences Pitch Only: fixed tone duration (212 ms) with frequency randomly selected from a logarithmically scaled distribution ( Hz). Rhythm Only: fixed tone frequency (837 Hz) with a randomly selected log scaled duration ( ms). Pitch & Rhythm: random frequency and duration. Dissimilar Target and Response Sequences Pitch – Rhythm: both frequency and duration were randomized with only frequency defining the target sequence so that the task was reconstructing a pitch contour with a random rhythmic sequence. Rhythm - Pitch: both frequency and duration were randomized with only rhythm defining the target sequence (i.e., rhythm reconstruction with a random pitch sequence). With randomization, a minimum frequency-separation factor of 1.2 and duration-separation factor of 1.4 was assured between any two sequence tones. Subjects were divided into two groups. For the first, response buttons were systematically ordered by frequency from low to high, or by from duration short to long if the frequency of sequence tones was fixed. To increase memory demands and eliminate a response strategy in which subjects listen only to the target sequence and not the individual response tones, for the second group, sequence tones were assigned a random response button on each trial. Fig. 2. With systematic response-button ordering, box plots showing results from the five conditions in terms of number of sequence components correctly placed (left panel) or P(C) for sequence reconstruction (right panel). The dashed line at the bottom of each panel indicates chance performance. Fig. 3. Same as Fig. 2 with random response-button ordering. Discussion & Summary When only one stimulus attribute was randomized, performance was significantly better with sequences defined by pitch rather than rhythmic variation. With systematic button ordering, the introduction of randomization of the second stimulus attribute did not lead to significant evidence of either a beneficial (Pitch & Rhythm) or deleterious (Pitch – Rhythm and Rhythm – Pitch) effect. This finding is consistent with a response strategy based solely on processing of the target sequence tones, disregarding acoustic information given by the response alternatives. When forced to use the acoustic information of the response alternatives due to random button ordering, both beneficial and deleterious effects of stimulus variations were more apparent, with the degrading effect of rhythmic variability consistent with the sequence discrimination results of Sorkin (1987). The greater memory demands imposed by random button ordering may also have been a factor. However, between-groups performance was not significantly affected by type of response-button ordering. There was no significant primacy or recency effect regarding tone position in the sequence (Figs. 4 & 5), consistent with holistic encoding of the sequences. Listeners clustered primarily by ability to use pitch information. In terms of relevance to speech training, a regimen that focuses on pitch relationships, especially in the context of extraneous rhythmic variations, may be beneficial. References Bigand E. (1997). J Exp Psych Human Percept Perf 23, Boltz M.G. (1998). Percept Psychophys 60, Palmer C., & Krumhansl C.L. (1987). J Exp Psych Human Percept Perf 13, Peretz I., & Kolinsky R. (1993). Q J Exp Psych 46A, Sheft S., Shafiro V., & Cortese K. (2013). Int Symp Aud Audiolog Res, Nyborg, DK. Sorkin R.D. (1987). J Acoust Soc Am 82, Acknowledgments: Work supported by NIDCD (R15 DC011916). Fig. 4. With systematic response-button ordering, box plots showing results in separate panels from the five conditions in terms of P(C) for each tone position in the sequence. The dashed line at the bottom of each panel indicates chance performance. Fig. 5. Same as Fig. 4 with random response-button ordering. Fig. 1. Illustration of the sequence-reconstruction task. The sequence tones represented by the four boxes labeled A, B, C and D are rearranged in the upper place holders to reconstruct the original or target pattern. Fig. 6. Scatter plot of individual performance averaged across the two conditions with only pitch cues (abscissa) and the two with rhythmic cues only (ordinate). Cluster membership is indicated by symbol color.


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