A figural approach to the role of melodic contour in melody recognition

Abstract

These experiments looked at specific components of melodic contour, reversals in pitch, and nonreversals, using a short-term recognition memory paradigm. Listeners found it easier to discriminate between same and different melody pairs if changes occurred at contour reversals. This result was independent of rate of presentation, suggesting that the salience of upper and lower reversals is not attributable to a form of perceptual streaming. These results suggest an analogy between auditory and visual contours. If melodic contour is represented as a series of pitches extending over time, then reversals can be interpreted as "comers" and nonreversals &s "slopes." The results are consistent with a global strategy of perceptual analysis whereby comers are more salient because they "define the figure." An alternative explanation is that the melodies are processed in a way that is similar to the processing of the intonation pattern of speech. These contour feature effects were drastically reduced when the second melody was transposed and/or following a familiarization procedure. This last result is attributed to a more detailed perceptual analysis being performed under these conditions, a process that is less influenced by contour. Therefore,while specificcontour features, reversals in pitch, playa part in the recognition of untransposed novel melodies, these features are not prevalent in the recognition of transposed and more familiar sequences.In an attempt to understand melody perception, numerous investigators have drawn upon perceptual . principles derived from other modalities. Analogies have been made with the perception of visual figures, and by comparing similarities and differences between modalities the utility of general principles of perceptual organization has been explored. This paper concentrates on the role of melodic contour in the recognition of tone sequences. Here melodic contour is broken down into components, and this represents a departure from the practice of previous workers, such as Dowling and Fujitani (1971). These authors describe contour as the overall pattern or shape of the melody, and this consists of the series of directions of pitch change (the ups and downs in pitch), disregarding the magnitude of the pitch change. The present investigation is designed to examine the perceptual significance of smaller elements of the overall contour, that is, contour components. These are examined in relation to general ideas concerning the perceptual representation of auditory sequences.A number of previous studies have investigated the role of melodic contour in melody recognition. In these studies, either the contour remained the same This work was supported by a grant from SERe. The authors wish to acknowledge the invaluable technical support provided by the Reading Department of Psychology, in particular that of Dave Martin, The authors' mailing address is: Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AL, England. or the pattern of ups and downs was changed in ...

Scale, key, and contour in the discrimination of tuned and mistuned approximations to melody

“…Here, contour similarities need to be recognized in various frequency ranges ("transpositions") and across varying degrees of frequency excursion ("tunings"). It has been argued that speech contours and melodic contours have similar perceptual properties (Dyson & Watkins, 1984;Thomassen, 1982). This argument is reinforced by the present findings, that the discrimination of contour differences in both melodic and nonmelodic tone sequences is quantitatively similar, there being no reliable differences in the size of the contour effect across the different tunings.…”

“…It has been suggested that various aspects of the contour are important for the communication of structure in music. For example, Jones (1981) proposed that reversals in contour might emphasize notes of structural importance, and it has been shown that contour reversals in novel melodies are more perceptually salient than are nonreversals (Dyson & Watkins, 1984). Other authors maintain that contour is an important component in memory for music (Dowling, 1978).…”

Musical Features That Facilitate Melody Identification: How Do You Know It's “Your” Song When They Finally Play It?

“…Several musical features that are easily perceived by relatively untrained listeners-for example, tonal function (Dowling, 1978) and melodic contour (Dyson & Watkins, 1984;Jones & Ralston, 1991)-failed to emerge as significant predictors of melody identification. This result may reflect the fact that standard music perception paradigms require the listener to detect manipulations of single notes.…”

“…A reversal of contour direction refers to a change from a rising pitch line to a falling pitch line, or vice versa. Research has shown that alterations to a previously heard melody are more easily detected when they occur at contour reversals than when they occur at other locations (Dyson & Watkins, 1984). Further, Jones (1987;Jones & Ralston, 1991) has argued that points of contour inflection serve as melodic accents that draw the listeners' attention and have shown that changes in contour direction significantly affect melody perception (Boltz, Marshburn, Jones, & Johnson, 1985;Cuddy et al, 1981;Monahan et al, 1987).…”

“…Further, Jones (1987;Jones & Ralston, 1991) has argued that points of contour inflection serve as melodic accents that draw the listeners' attention and have shown that changes in contour direction significantly affect melody perception (Boltz, Marshburn, Jones, & Johnson, 1985;Cuddy et al, 1981;Monahan et al, 1987). Contour reversals are considered an index of holistic processing because their function has been likened to that of corners in visual displays; that is, they establish the broad outlines of the melody (Dyson & Watkins, 1984).…”