Expectancy effects in memory for melodies.

Abstract

Two experiments explored the relation between melodic expectancy and melodic memory. In Experiment 1, listeners rated the degree to which different endings confirmed their expectations for a set of melodies. After providing these expectancy ratings, listeners received a recognition memory test in which they discriminated previously heard melodies from new melodies. Recognition memory in this task positively correlated with perceived expectancy, and was related to the estimated tonal coherence of these melodies. Experiment 2 extended these results, demonstrating better recognition memory for high expectancy melodies, relative to medium and low expectancy melodies. This experiment also observed asymmetrical memory confusions as a function of perceived expectancy. These findings fit with a model of musical memory in which schematically central events are better remembered than schematically peripheral events.The generation of expectations has been recognized as a central factor in listeners' perceptions of music. Simply defined, "expectation 11 refers to the anticipation of upcoming information based on past and current information. The concept of expectancy has traditionally received, and continues to receive, a great deal of attention from both a music-theoretic (e.g., Meyer, 1956Meyer, ,1965Narmour, 1989Narmour, , 1990Narmour, ,1992 and psychological viewpoint (e.g., Bharucha, 1987Bharucha, , 1994Carlsen, 1981Carlsen, , 1982Carlsen, Divenyi, & Taylor, 1970;Cuddy & Lunney, 1995;Dowling, 1994;Jones, 1976Jones, , 1981Jones, , 1982Jones, , 1990Krumhansl, 1995;Schellenberg, 1996Schellenberg, ,1997Schmuckler, 1989Schmuckler, ,1990Schmuckler & Boltz, 1994;Unyk & Carlsen, 1987).Given this interest, it is not surprising that expectation has been found to play a critical role in many aspects of musical processing. One such area involves listeners' judgments of, and responses to, musical passages. For example, Schmuckler (1989) had listeners provide goodness-of-fit ratings for a set of continuations of melodic, harmonic, and combined melodic-harmonic passages. These studies uncovered systematic variation in listeners' judgments of these continuations, with some endings receiving high expectancy ratings, whereas other endings received relatively low expectancy ratings. Additionally, these studies demonstrated that expectancies were predictable from various music-theoretic and perceptual/cognitive principles of pattern organization. Similar results have been observed by Cuddy and Lunney (1995), Krumhansl (1995), andSchellenberg (1996), in their tests of Narmour's (1990Narmour's ( ,1992) implication-realization model. Together, these findings suggest that judgments of a musical event vary with the perceived expectancy of that passage, with expectations quantifiable on the basis of a range of factors.A second area in which expectancies play a role in musical perception is the processing and encoding of musical information. For example, Bharucha and colleagues (Bharucha & Stoeckig, 1986, 1987Tekman & Bharucha, 1992) de...

Expectancy in melody: Tests of children and adults.

“…Indeed, melodies that are judged to be consistent with adults' expectancies are better remembered than unexpected melodies (Schmuckler, 1997). Moreover, when listeners are asked to judge similarities between melodies, unexpected melodies are considered more similar to expected melodies than the reverse comparisons (Schmuckler, 1997). Schmuckler suggested that listeners have better memories for schematically central events (i.e., expected melodies) compared with peripheral events (i.e., unexpected melodies).…”

Expectation in Melody: The Influence of Context and Learning

“…From a music-analytic perspective, it has been argued that the generation and subsequent confirmation or violation of expectations is critical to aesthetic experience, and the communication of emotion and meaning in music (Meyer, 1956;Narmour, 1990). From a psychological perspective, expectancy has been found to influence recognition memory for music (Schmuckler, 1997), the production of music (Carlsen, 1981;Schmuckler, 1989Schmuckler, , 1990; Thompson, Cuddy, & Plaus, 1997;Unyk & Carlsen, 1987), the perception of music (Cuddy & Lunny, 1995;Krumhansl, 1995b;Schellenberg, 1996;Schmuckler, 1989), and the transcription of music (Unyk & Carlsen, 1987). While most empirical research has examined the influence of melodic structure, expectancy in music also reflects the influence of rhythmic and metric structure (Jones, 1987;Jones & Boltz, 1989) as well as harmonic structure (Bharucha, 1987;Schmuckler, 1989).…”

“…A variety of experimental paradigms have been employed to study expectancy including rating completions of musical contexts (Cuddy & Lunny, 1995;Krumhansl, 1995a;Schellenberg, 1996), generating continuations to musical contexts (Carlsen, 1981;Schmuckler, 1989;Thompson et al, 1997;Unyk & Carlsen, 1987), classifying and remembering musical fragments (Schmuckler, 1997), reaction time experiments (Aarden, 2003;Bharucha & Stoeckig, 1986), and continuous response methodologies (Eerola, Toiviainen, & Krumhansl, 2002). Although expectancy in music has been shown to operate in a number of different contexts over a number of different parameters and structural levels in music, this review is restricted to studies of expectancy in melodic music and, in particular, those which have specifically addressed the claims of the IR theory.…”

Perceptual Tests of an Algorithm for Musical Key-Finding.

“…Along with an influence from memory, music cognition research has highlighted the importance of the anticipation of upcoming events in the apprehension of music. Such work on musical expectancy (e.g., Bharucha, 1994;Bharucha & Stoeckig, 1986Bigand et al, 1999;Bigand & Pineau, 1997;Bigand et al, 2003;Cuddy & Lunney, 1995;Jones, 1981Jones, , 1982Jones, , 1990Krumhansl, 1995;Meyer, 1956; Schmuckler, 1989Schmuckler, , 1990Schmuckler, , 1997aSchmuckler & Boltz, 1994) has demonstrated myriad influences on the apprehension of, response to, and memory for musical materials (see Schmuckler, 1997a, for a review). Moreover, work on musical expectancy has demonstrated that tonality is a major determinant on the formation of expectations (e.g., Schmuckler, 1989Schmuckler, , 1990.…”