Pitch and rhythmic patterns affecting infants' sensitivity to musical phrase structure

Author(s): Krumhansl, C. L.

Journal/Book: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1993; 19: 627-40.

Abstract: The present studies were undertaken to learn more about the nature of the cues that underlie infants' perception of musical phrase structure. Experiment 1 demonstrated that infants in Krumhansl and Jusczyk's (1990) study were responding to the phrase structure instead of to the beginnings and endings of Mozart minuet stimuli. Experiment 2 showed that infants treat musical passages with pauses inserted at phrase boundaries much as they do unaltered versions of the same passages. Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that the direction of change in pitch height and tone duration is critical to obtaining longer orientation times to musical passages that are segmented at phrase boundaries. Finally, Experiment 5 demonstrates that different effects found for the forward and reversed versions of the passages with inserted pauses are not the result of an intrinsic preference for the forward versions.

Note: Department of Psychology State University of New York Buffalo 14260.

Keyword(s): Acoustic Stimulation; Auditory Perception; Infant. Music ; Periodicity ; Pitch Perception. Female; Human; Male; Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

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