Tonal expectations influence pitch perception

Marmel, Frederic; Tillmann, Barbara; Dowling, W. Jay

doi:10.3758/pp.70.5.841

Cited by 46 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 73 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A brief acoustic event such as a rapidly changing plosive sound can elicit a Mismatch Negativity with a languagecharacteristic left-hemispheric dominance when embedded in a word, but not in a nonspeech context or a pseudoword (Shtyrov et al, 2005). Similarly, in music, listeners' knowledge of the Western tonal system facilitates pitch processing of a tone when it occurs in tonal sequences over atonal, random sequences (Lynch and Eilers, 1992;Brattico et al, 2002) and when fulfilling an important musical function over a less-important musical function in tonal sequences (Marmel et al, 2008). These findings suggest that top-down influences might also affect early processing steps of pitch extraction in congenital amusia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Fine-grained pitch processing of music and speech in congenital amusia

Tillmann

Rusconi

Traube

et al. 2011

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder of music processing that has been ascribed to impaired pitch perception and memory. The present study tested a large group of amusics (n=17) and provided evidence that their pitch deficit affects pitch processing in speech to a lesser extent: Fine-grained pitch discrimination was better in spoken syllables than in acoustically matched tones. Unlike amusics, control participants performed fine-grained pitch discrimination better for musical material than for verbal material. These findings suggest that pitch extraction can be influenced by the nature of the material (music vs speech), and that amusics' pitch deficit is not restricted to musical material, but extends to segmented speech events.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Fine-grained pitch processing of music and speech in congenital amusia

Tillmann

Rusconi

Traube

et al. 2011

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Empirical work has been similarly prolific over this time period (Carlsen et al, 1970; Carlsen, 1981, 1982; Jones, 1981, 1982; Bharucha and Stoeckig, 1986, 1987; Boltz, 1989, 1993; Schmuckler, 1989, 1990; Jones, 1990; Bharucha, 1994; Krumhansl, 1995; Schellenberg, 1996, 1997; Tekman and Bharucha, 1998; Tillmann et al, 1998, 2000, 2003; Larson, 2002, 2004; Bigand et al, 2003; Margulis, 2005; Ockelford, 2006; Pearce and Wiggins, 2006, 2012; Marmel et al, 2008, 2010; Marmel and Tillmann, 2009; Thorpe et al, 2011; Ockelford and Sargeant, 2012). This work has also explored multiple aspects of musical expectancy, and has similarly highlighted the factors underlying expectancy formation, along with the impact of expectancy formation for on-going musical processing and subsequent musical memory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for musical tones: the impact of tonality and the creation of false memories

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the relation between tonality and musical memory has been fairly well-studied, less is known regarding the contribution of tonal-schematic expectancies to this relation. Three experiments investigated the influence of tonal expectancies on memory for single tones in a tonal melodic context. In the first experiment, listener responses indicated superior recognition of both expected and unexpected targets in a major tonal context than for moderately expected targets. Importantly, and in support of previous work on false memories, listener responses also revealed a higher false alarm rate for expected than unexpected targets. These results indicate roles for tonal schematic congruency as well as distinctiveness in memory for melodic tones. The second experiment utilized minor melodies, which weakened tonal expectancies since the minor tonality can be represented in three forms simultaneously. Finally, tonal expectancies were abolished entirely in the third experiment through the use of atonal melodies. Accordingly, the expectancy-based results observed in the first experiment were disrupted in the second experiment, and disappeared in the third experiment. These results are discussed in light of schema theory, musical expectancy, and classic memory work on the availability and distinctiveness heuristics.

show abstract

“…This suggests that top-down processes linked to tonal relatedness (based on listenersʼ knowledge of the tonal system) influence pitch processing at perceptual-as opposed to decisional-levels (see Marmel et al, 2008, for behavioral data with nonmusician participants). In the present study, participantsʼ attention was directed to the pitch dimension with a pitch discrimination task.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The key findings suggest that nonmusician listeners have acquired implicit knowledge of the abstract regularities defining tonal structures by mere exposure to tonal music and that this tonal knowledge drives the formation of expectations for future pitch events. Recent behavioral data suggest that tonal expectations can influence pitch perception even at perceptual processing steps and not only at task-related, decisional processing (Marmel, Tillmann, & Dowling, 2008). Aiming to further understand the processing steps influenced by tonal expectations, our present study investigated the influence of tonal expectations on the neural correlates of pitch processing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Tonal Expectations Influence Early Pitch Processing

Marmel¹,

Perrin²,

Tillmann³

2011

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study investigated the ERP correlates of the influence of tonal expectations on pitch processing. Participants performed a pitch discrimination task between penultimate and final tones of melodies. These last two tones were a repetition of the same musical note, but penultimate tones were always in tune whereas final tones were slightly out of tune in half of the trials. The pitch discrimination task allowed us to investigate the influence of tonal expectations in attentive listening and, for penultimate tones, without being confounded by decisional processes (occurring on final tones). Tonal expectations were manipulated by a tone change in the first half of the melodies that changed their tonality, hence changing the tonal expectedness of penultimate and final tones without modifying them acoustically. Manipulating tonal expectations with minimal acoustic changes allowed us to focus on the cognitive expectations based on listeners' knowledge of tonal structures. For penultimate tones, tonal expectations modulated processing within the first 100 msec after onset resulting in an Nb/P1 complex that differed in amplitude between tonally related and less related conditions. For final tones, out-of-tune tones elicited an N2/P3 complex and, on in-tune tones only, tonal manipulation elicited an ERAN/RATN-like negativity overlapping with the N2. Our results suggest that cognitive tonal expectations can influence pitch perception at several steps of processing, starting with early attentional selection of pitch.

show abstract

Tonal expectations influence pitch perception

Cited by 46 publications

References 73 publications

Fine-grained pitch processing of music and speech in congenital amusia

Fine-grained pitch processing of music and speech in congenital amusia

Memory for musical tones: the impact of tonality and the creation of false memories

Tonal Expectations Influence Early Pitch Processing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About