Abstraction of themes from melodic variations

Journal/Book: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1982; 8: 435-47.

Abstract: A schema formation analysis was applied to listeners' abstraction of themes from melodic variations. A set of transformations of a prototypical melody was generated by systematic application of five transformational rules. The prototype represented the structural central tendency of the set. In Experiment 1 participants listened to the transformations and were tested for abstraction of the prototype in two ways; (a) they were asked to draw the melodic contour of 10 notes best describing the central tendency of the set of transformations, and (b) they were given a false recognition task in which they were asked to recognize the prototype and other transformations, none of which were in the original set, in a procedure analogous to that used by Franks and Bransford (1971). Both measures indicated that participants abstracted the prototype while listening to the original set of transformations. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with participants fully informed about the purpose and design of the experiment, a different task for recognizing the prototype (judging the similarity of transformations to the abstracted prototype) , and a different prototype. In Experiment 3 participants who listened to the prototype produced data on the contour drawing and recognition tasks that were indistinguishable from those produced by participants who abstracted the theme from its variations.

Keyword(s): Auditory Perception|. Discrimination Learning|. Music|

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