Four experiments on recognition of tone series are reported. The first experiment tested the accuracy of recognition in relation to length, contour complexity, and tonal structure of the series. Series comprised (1) 7 or 10 tones, (2) either a strong or a weak tonal structure, depending on the temporal ordering ofthe tones, and (3) few or many contour reversals. The second experiment used 7-tone series having either a strong or a weak tonal structure, depending on the mode (Ionian or Phrygian) in which the series was presented. Both experiments employed a samedifferent task in which a standard series was compared with either an exact or an inexact transposition, the latter type having one incorrectly transposed tone (mostly nondiatonic in Experiment 1 and always diatonic in Experiment 2). These experiments showed that (1) 7-tone series were better recognized than were lO-tone series, (2) series with a strong tonal structure were better recognized than were series with a weak tonal structure, and (3) contour complexity did not influence the responses. Two control experiments, using mistuned tone series, showed that the outcomes of Experiments 1 and 2 could not be attributed to nonmusical artifacts of the stimulus set.

Two experiments were conducted to test Bartlett and Dowling's conclusion (1980) that the key of a tone sequence strongly influences recognition for short retention intervals, that the influence decreases with increasing retention time, and that the importance of the melodic interval information increases during the retention interval. Five different retention times were used (1,5,8,15, and 30 sec), together with standard tone sequences with a clear tonal scheme and two different contours (two or four directional contour changes). Subjects with moderate musical experience were able to discriminate tonal imitations and transpositions of the standards at all retention times; the number of contour changes did not influence the responses. It was concluded that interval information can be extracted from sequences with strong cues for a particular key within a very short period of time and that one of the major dimensions of tone sequences is not tonality or nontonality, but rather the degree of tonal clarity. This characteristic even may be superior to the number of contour changes.

This article reports an experiment that tested whether two types of tonally strong tone series are equally well recognized. The experiment also tested whether tonally weak series are less well recognized than tonally strong series, tonally strong series being transformed into tonally weak series by changing from the ionian to the phrygian church mode. The results show that (1) both types of tonally strong series are, on average, equally well recognized and (2) series presented in the phrygian mode are less well recognized than series presented in the ionian mode. The implications of these findings for research into tone-series recognition are discussed.

Two experiments concerning the recognition of tone series with a triad on the tonic located either at the beginning, the center, or the end of the series are reported. In Experiment 1, the series consisted of nine tones and comprised three subgroups of either diatonic or nondiatonic tones. Experiment 2 focused on series of 9,11, and 13 tones. The results of Experiment 1 showed that recognition was most accurate for series with the tonic triad located in the center. In Experiment 2, the same effect of location of the tonic triad was found for series of 9 tones, but no significant effect of location of the triad was found for series of 11 or 13 tones. It appears that the location of a tonic triad influences the recognition of short tone series only, and the tonic triad has the greatest impact when it is located in the center of such a series.

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