Cross-cultural perception of musical similarity within and between India and Japan

Abstract

Cross-cultural perception of musical similarity is important for understanding musical diversity and universality. In this study we analyzed cross-cultural music similarity ratings on a global song sample from 110 participants (62 previously published from Japan, 48 newly collected from musicians and non-musicians from north and south India). Our pre-registered hypothesis that average Indian and Japanese ratings would be correlated was strongly supported (r = .80, p < .001). Exploratory analyses showed that similarity ratings were less correlated among different sub-groups within India than between average Indian and average Japanese ratings. In particular, ratings from experts in Hindustani music from the north and Carnatic music from the south showed the lowest correlations (r = .25). These analyses support previous findings that musical variability is greater within than between cultures, and suggest that the correlations we found are likely due more to shared musical exposure than to innate universals of music perception.