[Musical excerpts: indices relating to familiarity, age of acquisition and verbal associations]

Author(s): Baba, M., Lussier, I., Hébert, S., Gagnon, L.

Journal/Book: Can J Exp Psychol. 1995; 49: 211-39.

Abstract: The objective of the present study was to establish estimates of familiarity, of age of acquisition, and of verbal associations in relation to 144 musical excerpts drawn from the repertoire of tunes that is expected to be shared by all French-speaking Québec university students. The excerpts were synthesized monophonic lines (which can be found in Appendix B) that were tape recorded. A first group of 60 university students were required to indicate their degree of familiarity ( on a 5-point scale) with each excerpt and the age period at which they learned the excerpt. A second group of 60 students indicated whether the original tune was vocal or instrumental as well as the first words that came to mind. In each group, half the subjects were presented with the 144 excerpts in a different order. Overall, the material was found to be highly familiar and to have been mostly learned between the ages of 5 and 15. Most of the excerpts were easily categorized as vocal or instrumental with the exception of 26 excerpts, which were accordingly classified as ambiguous. Finally, 57% of the excerpts elicited verbal responses. There was a high level of agreement in some of the verbal responses provided, referred to as dominant responses. In contrast, 21 excerpts gave rise to very little verbal recall, hence specifying a subset of "purely" musical material. All indices of familiarity, of acquisition age, and of verbal responses (specifying the overall rate of verbal responding, the content of the dominant response as well as its frequency of occurrence) are provided for each excerpt in Appendix A. Finally, the most interesting aspect of the present study was revealed by the analysis of the errors in verbal recall. Subjects tended to fill in missing elements by words that fitted the meaning of song lyrics as well as the temporal structure of the music. For instance, instead of providing "MON BEAU SAPIN", subjects would provide "mon grand sapin". The use of such a procedure is consistent with the notion that music serves as a memory aid which facilitates the communication of news and ideas.

Note: Département de psychologie Université de Montréal Centre-Ville Québec.

Keyword(s): Language|. Learning|. Music|

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