When speech enhances Spatial Musical Association of Response Codes: Joint spatial associations of pitch and timbre in nonmusicians

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the effect of the Spatial Musical Association of Response Codes (SMARC) depends on various features, such as task conditions (whether pitch height is implicit or explicit), response dimension (horizontal vs. vertical), presence or absence of a reference tone, and former musical training of the participants. In the present study, we investigated the effects of pitch range and timbre: in particular, how timbre (piano vs. vocal) contributes to the horizontal and vertical SMARC effect in nonmusicians under varied pitch range conditions. Nonmusicians performed a timbre judgement task in which the pitch range was either small (6 or 8 semitone steps) or large (9 or 12 semitone steps) in a horizontal and a vertical response setting. For piano sounds, SMARC effects were observed in all conditions. For the vocal sounds, in contrast, SMARC effects depended on pitch range. We concluded that the occurrence of the SMARC effect, especially in horizontal response settings, depends on the interaction of the timbre (vocal and piano) and pitch range if vocal and instrumental sounds are combined in one experiment: the human voice enhances the attention, both to the vocal and the instrumental sounds.

Representation of pitch in horizontal space and its dependence on musical and instrumental experience.

“…Two studies in which this was the case used piano and/or vocal sounds as stimuli (Weis et al, 2015;2016). Using sounds with particular timbres (e.g.…”

Instrumental expertise and musical timbre modulate the spatial representation of pitch

“…In particular, Cho and colleagues (2012) demonstrated that even non-musicians show a horizontal SMARC effect in a timbre judgement task, but only when a referent tone was presented. Furthermore, Weis et al (2016) showed an influence of both musical timbre and pitch range only in the horizontal space, whereas these variables did not modulate the vertical representation of pitch.…”

“…The tendency to represent auditory pitch on space has been consistently reported in various empirical works. A well-known finding supporting the existence of such a spatial mapping of auditory pitch is the Spatial–Musical Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect (Cho et al, 2012; Lidji et al, 2007; Nishimura & Yokosawa, 2009; Pitteri et al, 2017; Rusconi, 2005; Rusconi et al, 2006; Stewart et al, 2013; Weis et al, 2016), which has been documented along both horizontal and vertical dimensions. In particular, in the vertical space, the SMARC effect refers to the tendency to associate bottom responses with low-pitched tones and top responses with high-pitched tones.…”

“…Therefore, to what extent the specific instrumental expertise contributes to the directionality of the spatial association of musical tones is still an open question. Furthermore, a recent study (Weis et al, 2016) showed that also non-musicians display a horizontal SMARC effect for piano tones but not for vocal sounds in an implicit judgement task. The authors interpreted this result in light of the general knowledge of the piano keyboard organisation (sometimes reinforced also by training during schooling), which may trigger the association of low piano tones with left-side responses and high piano tones with right-side responses, even for non-musicians.…”

“…More critically, this association has been reported in remote populations who do not use spatial language for describing pitch (Parkinson et al, 2012). Furthermore, the mapping between pitch height and vertical location is automatically activated in musicians and non-musicians, regardless of the musical training, when the pitch is both explicitly and implicitly (i.e., timbre judgement) processed (Lidji et al, 2007; Pitteri et al, 2017; Rusconi et al, 2006; Weis et al, 2016). Finally, a recent study demonstrated that the lack of prior visual experience does not prevent the development of an association between pitch height and vertical space (Cattaneo et al, 2018).…”