The perceptual reality of tone chroma in early infancy

Demany, Laurent; Armand, Françoise

doi:10.1121/1.2019198

Cited by 32 publications

(43 citation statements)

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“…At 11 months, 50% of a long melodic monologue represented notes from the F-major scale (particularly, F, A, C, D, F). The privileged position of the diatonic small ratios has been shown in developmental studies for octaves (Demany & Armand, 1984;Krumhansl & Jusczyk, 1990, as described by Krumhansl, 1990); the major triad , and other simple ratios (Schellenberg & Trainor, 1996;Trainor, 1997;Trainor & Trehub, 1993;Zentner & Kagan, 1996). They related difficulties with certain intervals to instability of the 7th and 11th harmonics (p. 199).…”

Section: Harmonic Relations Between Notesmentioning

confidence: 91%

Development of Tonality Induction: Plasticity, Exposure, and Training

Cohen¹

2000

Music Perception

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Tonality induction is the natural outcome of acoustic redundancies in music and the predisposition of the brain to represent these redundancies. In the simplest case, tonality induction relies on frequency resolution and a memory accumulator. A review of the literature suggests that these and other more sophisticated building blocks (analysis of complex tones and sensitivity to sequential characteristics of musical patterns) are in place to contribute to tonality induction in the first year of life. As further revealed by life-span studies of preference and recognition for stylistically different popular music excerpts, two other constraints must also be considered: (1) brain plasticity and (2) degree of exposure to music of particular styles. The importance of a final factor, (3) formal music performance training, is shown in studies of (a) the benefits of the major triad frequency ratio relations (4: 5: 6) on memory (absolute judgment) for tones in an unfamiliar context (b) the applicability of a model based on a key-finding algorithm to pitch memory in a tonal context, and (c) the probe-tone task.

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Section: Harmonic Relations Between Notesmentioning

confidence: 91%

Development of Tonality Induction: Plasticity, Exposure, and Training

Cohen¹

2000

Music Perception

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“…One exception to this is the octave. Listeners seem more sensitive to deviations from the octave than to deviations from adjacent intervals, both for simultaneously [17] and sequentially [18,19] presented tones. The same method yields weak and inconsistent effects for other intervals [20], suggesting that the octave is unique in this regard.…”

Section: Relative Pitch – Behavioral Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Music perception, pitch, and the auditory system

McDermott¹,

Oxenham²

2008

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

165

115

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The perception of music depends on many culture-specific factors, but is also constrained by properties of the auditory system. This has been best characterized for those aspects of music that involve pitch. Pitch sequences are heard in terms of relative, as well as absolute, pitch. Pitch combinations give rise to emergent properties not present in the component notes. In this review we discuss the basic auditory mechanisms contributing to these and other perceptual effects in music.

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“…Demany and Armand (1984) demonstrated that infants perceive tones an octave apart (standing in a 2:l ratio) to be more similar than tones slightly more than or slightly less than an octave apart. In the present study, we explored the possibility that simple frequency ratios in general have special status for young infants.…”

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confidence: 98%

Natural Musical Intervals: Evidence From Infant Listeners

1996

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Aticietit ntid tiiedieval scholars cotisidered toties related by sittiple (stiiall-iriteger) ratios to he tintiirally pleasitig, biit cotitetiiporaty scholars nttribiite the special perceptiinl statiis of siicli soiitids to exposirre. We itiwstigated the possibility of processitig predispositiotis for sotiie torie cotiihitintiotis by cr.nliiatirig itgatits' ability to detect siihtle ciiatiges to pattenis of sirtiiiltarieoiis atid seqiietitinl toiles. It gatits detected siicli chariges to pairs of piire toties (intervals) orily dieti the toties were related by simple freqireticy ratios. This was the CNSC for 9-ntotith-old it garits tested with harrnotiic (sittiiiltririeoiis) ititervals arid for 6-ttiotitli-old ittfnrits tested with ttielodic (seqiietitial) iritervals. These resirlts ore coilsisterit witli II biologicnl basis for the prevaletice of particirlar ititends historiccilly arid cross-ciiltiirally .The origin of the idea that consonant, or pleasant-sounding, combinations of musical tones have special numerical properties is generally attributed to Pythagoras (ca. 600 BC) (see Plomp & Levelt, 1965, for a review of historical accounts of consonance and dissonance). When Pythagoras partitioned a vibrating string into two sections whose lengths were related by simple (i.e., small-integer) ratios, such as 2:1, 3:2, and 4:3. he observed that the resulting combinations of tones sounded more consonant than did combinations for lengths related by more complex ratios. In the Middle Ages, beauty in general was considered to depend on numerical properties, music in particular being "number made audible" (Seay, 1975, p. 19). Indeed, the medieval philosopher Boethius considered music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy to be equal parts of the Quadrivium, the four essential disciplines of mathematics. The degree of beauty was believed to reflect the relative simplicity of the underlying numerical relations. In fact, musical intervals (combinations of two tones) with simple ratios were thought to mirror the beauty of God, the complex-ratio (45:32) interval known as the tritatie being the "devil in music" (Seay, 1975, p. 83).Renaissance scholars' discovery of the association between the pitch of a tone and its frequency of vibration (hertz, or cycles per second) provided a psychophysical rationale for Pythagorean ideas of consonance-subdividing a string into simple ratios based on length results in simple ratios based on frequency (see Hall, 1980, p. 442). According to Galileo (17th century) as well as some contemporary theorists (Bernstein, 1976; Boomsliter & Creel, 1961), tones related by simple frequency ratios are preferred because their vibrations generate more regular or pleasing neural patterns, a claim as yet uncor-

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The perceptual reality of tone chroma in early infancy

Cited by 32 publications

References 0 publications

Development of Tonality Induction: Plasticity, Exposure, and Training

Development of Tonality Induction: Plasticity, Exposure, and Training

Music perception, pitch, and the auditory system

Natural Musical Intervals: Evidence From Infant Listeners

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