Pitch and time, tonality and meter: How do musical dimensions combine?

We examined explicit processing of musical syntax and tonality in a group of Han Chinese Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia, and the extent to which pitch discrimination impairments were associated with syntax and tonality processing. In Experiment 1, we assessed whether congenital amusia is associated with impaired explicit processing of musical syntax. Congruity ratings were examined for syntactically regular or irregular endings in harmonic and melodic contexts. Unlike controls, amusic participants failed to explicitly distinguish regular from irregular endings in both contexts. Surprisingly, however, a concurrent manipulation of pitch distance did not affect the processing of musical syntax for amusics, and their impaired music-syntactic processing was uncorrelated with their pitch discrimination thresholds. In Experiment 2, we assessed tonality perception using a probe-tone paradigm. Recovery of the tonal hierarchy was less evident for the amusic group than for the control group, and this reduced sensitivity to tonality in amusia was also unrelated to poor pitch discrimination. These findings support the view that music structure is processed by cognitive and neural resources that operate independently of pitch discrimination, and that these resources are impaired in explicit judgments for individuals with congenital amusia.

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“…Metrically stable temporal positions usually correspond to those of tonally stable tones in Western tonal music (Prince et al, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

Impaired Explicit Processing of Musical Syntax and Tonality in a Group of Mandarin-Speaking Congenital Amusics

2016

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“…More recently, Prince, Thompson, and Schmuckler (2008) found an asymmetric relation between pitch and time, with pitch variation influencing temporal judgments, but temporal variation having no impact on pitch judgments. In this study, musically trained listeners heard a simple tonal context consisting of a melody accompanied by supporting chords and a metronome click, followed by a probe tone that varied in its pitch and timing.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, listeners' responses exhibited a congruity effect in which tonally stable probes were reported as occurring at metrically stable positions, and tonally unstable tones were reported as occurring at metrically unstable positions. Prince et al (2008) argued that this asymmetry arises due to a learned, inherent bias in the processing of typical Western tonal music that generally contains more elaborated and compelling pitch variation, relative to rhythmic/temporal variation.…”

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confidence: 99%

The effect of task and pitch structure on pitch-time interactions in music

2009

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Musical pitch-time relations were explored by investigating the effect of temporal variation on musical pitch processing. In Experiment 1, musicians heard a standard tone, followed by a tonal context, then followed by a comparison tone, and performed one of two tasks. In the cognitive task, listeners were asked to ignore the standard tone and to judge whether the comparison tone was in the key of the context. In the perceptual task, listeners were asked to ignore the context and judge whether the comparison tone was higher or lower in pitch than the earlier standard tone. In both tasks, the comparison tone occurred early, on-time or late with respect to the temporal structure that the context established. Analyses of accuracy in both the cognitive and perceptual tasks failed to reveal any impact of temporal variation on pitch judgments. Experiment 2 used only the perceptual task, and varied the pitch structure by employing either a tonal context or an atonal context of random pitches, and manipulating the temporal placement of the comparison tone. Like Experiment 1, temporal variation had no effect on pitch height judgments for tonal contexts; however this variation influenced accuracy for atonal contexts. Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiment 2 but also controlled several potentially confounding factors. We argue that tonal contexts bias listeners' attention toward pitch, thus eliminating effects of temporal variation, whereas atonal contexts do not favor pitch and thus foster pitch-time interactions in musical pitch processing.Task and structure 3

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“…Although some previous work investigating the relationship between tonal orientation and metric hierarchy has used probe tones or timed reaction tasks (Prince et al, 2009), others have employed the more complex decision-making task of matching a stimulus with an accompaniment (Hannon et al, 2004). We adopt the latter approach, with participants matching a metrically-determined musical stimulus with a tonally-orienting harmonization: a dominant seventh.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For instance, in probe-tone experiments, when asked to report whether the heard probe tone occurred on a beat or off a beat, participants tended to report stable tones as being on a beat, even in metrically ambiguous situations (Prince, Thompson, & Schmuckler, 2009). Similarly, Rosenthal and Hannon (2016) found that metrical position affects listeners' ratings of probe-tones after being exposed to whole-tone melodies that followed a non-uniform key profile distribution.…”

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confidence: 99%

Relationships Between Tonal Stability and Metrical Accent in Monophonic Contexts

White¹

2017

EMR

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Recent corpus analyses have provided evidence for interactions between tonal and metric hierarchies by illustrating that tonally stable pitches occur disproportionately often on strong metrical positions while tonally unstable pitches occur more frequently on weaker metrical positions. This study begins to investigate whether this observed property is salient to listeners' identification of metrical accents: by presenting participants with tonally-determined but metrically ambiguous beat patterns, we ask how tonal hierarchies might influence listeners' interpretation of these metricalaccent patterns (as measured via a tapping task). In Experiment 1, participants heard patterns alternating tonally stable and unstable pitches, and it was found that tonal stability did not affect metric interpretations. In Experiments 2 and 3, listeners heard an atonal artificial hierarchy prefaced by an exposure session using music generated by this artificial hierarchy; exposure did not influence the subsequent tapping task. Flipping the paradigm, in Experiment 4, participants heard a metrically defined but tonallyambiguous melody, and selected the most appropriate chord. The metrical context affected participants' harmonization choices. Although a tendency to align strong beats with chord tones accounted for some of the data, further analysis shows that changing the metrical context influenced chord choices, providing evidence for a joint tonal-metric hierarchy.

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Pitch and time, tonality and meter: How do musical dimensions combine?

Cited by 61 publications

References 136 publications

Impaired Explicit Processing of Musical Syntax and Tonality in a Group of Mandarin-Speaking Congenital Amusics

Impaired Explicit Processing of Musical Syntax and Tonality in a Group of Mandarin-Speaking Congenital Amusics

The effect of task and pitch structure on pitch-time interactions in music

Relationships Between Tonal Stability and Metrical Accent in Monophonic Contexts

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