Perception of musical tension in short chord sequences: The influence of harmonic function,sensory dissonance,horizontal motion,and musical training

This study investigates the effect of four variables (tonal hierarchies, sensory chordal consonance, horizontal motion, and musical training) on perceived musical tension. Participants were asked to evaluate the tension created by a chord X in sequences of three chords {C major → X → C major} in a C major context key. The X chords could be major or minor triads major-minor seventh, or minor seventh chords built on the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. The data were compared with Krumhansl’s (1990) harmonic hierarchy and with predictions of Lerdahl’s (1988) cognitive theory, Hutchinson and Knopoff’s (1978) and Parncutt’s (1989) sensory-psychoacoustical theories, and the model of horizontal motion defined in the paper. As a main outcome, it appears that judgments of tension arose from a convergence of several cognitive and psychoacoustics influences, whose relative importance varies, depending on musical training.     

Harmonic and rhythmic influences on musical expectancy

The effects of harmony and rhythm on expectancy formation were studied in two experiments. In both studies, we generated musical passages consisting of a melodic line accompanied by four harmonic (chord) events. These sequences varied in their harmonic content, the rhythmic periodicity of the three context chords prior to the final chord, and the ending time of the final chord itself. In Experiment 1, listeners provided ratings for how well the final chord in a chord sequence fit their expectations for what was to come next; analyses revealed subtle changes in ratings as a function of both harmonic and rhythmic variation. Experiment 2 extended these results; listeners made a speeded reaction time judgment on whether the final chord of a sequence belonged with its set of context chords. Analysis of the reaction time data suggested that harmonic and rhythmic variation also influenced the speed of musical processing. These results are interpreted with reference to current models of music cognition, and they highlight the need for rhythmical weighting factors within the psychological representation of tonal/pitch information.     

The tonal function of a task-irrelevant chord modulates speed of visual processing

Harmonic priming studies have provided evidence that musical expectations influence sung phoneme monitoring, with facilitated processing for phonemes sung on tonally related (expected) chords in comparison to less-related (less-expected) chords [Bigand, Tillmann, Poulin, D’Adamo, and Madurell (2001). The effect of harmonic context on phoneme monitoring in vocal music. Cognition, 81, B11–B20]. This tonal relatedness effect has suggested two interpretations: (a) processing of music and language interact at some level of processing; and (b) tonal functions of chords influence task performance via listeners’ attention. Our study investigated these hypotheses by exploring whether the effect of tonal relatedness extends to the processing of visually presented syllables (Experiments 1 and 2) and geometric forms (Experiments 3 and 4). For Experiments 1–4, visual target identification was faster when the musical background fulfilled listeners’ expectations (i.e., a related chord was played simultaneously). In Experiment 4, the addition of a baseline condition (i.e., without an established tonal center) further showed that the observed difference was due to a facilitation linked to the related chord and not to an inhibition or disruption caused by the less-related chord. This outcome suggests the influence of musical structures on attentional mechanisms and that these mechanisms are shared between auditory and visual modalities. The implications for research investigating neural correlates shared by music and language processing are discussed.     

Quantification of the hierarchy of tonal functions within a diatonic context

Listeners rated test tones falling in the octave range from middle to high C according to how well each completed a diatonic C major scale played in an adjacent octave just before the final test tone. Ratings were well explained in terms of three factors. The factors were distance in pitch height from the context tones, octave equivalence, and the following hierarchy of tonal functions: tonic tone, other tones of the major triad chord, other tones of a diatonic scale, and the nondiatonic tones. In these ratings, pitch height was more prominent for less musical listeners or with less musical (sinusoidal) tones, whereas octave equivalence and the tonal hierarchy prevailed for musical listeners, especially with harmonically richer tones. Ratings for quarter tones interpolated halfway between the halftone steps of the standard chromatic scale were approximately the averages of ratings for adjacent chromatic tones, suggesting failure to discriminate tones at this fine level of division.     

Effect of harmonic relatedness on the detection of temporal asynchronies

Speeded intonation judgments of a target chord are facilitated when the chord is preceded by a harmonically related prime chord. The present study extends harmonic priming to temporal asynchrony judgments. In both tasks, the normative target chords (consonant, synchronous) are processed more quickly and accurately after a harmonically related prime than after a harmonically unrelated prime. However, the influence of harmonic context on sensitivity (d') differs between the two tasks: d' was higher in the related context for intonation judgments but was higher in the unrelated context for asynchrony judgments. A neural net model of tonal knowledge activation provides an explanatory framework for both the facilitation in the related contexts and the sensitivity differences between the tasks.     

Tonal centers and expectancy: facilitation or inhibition of chords at the top of the harmonic hierarchy?

Harmonic priming studies have shown that a musical context with its tonal center influences target chord processing. In comparison with targets following baseline contexts, which do not establish a specific tonal center, processing is facilitated for a strongly related target functioning as the tonic, but inhibited for unrelated (out-of-key) and less related (subdominant) targets. This study investigated cost and benefit patterns for the processing of the 3 most important chords of the harmonic hierarchy. Response time patterns reflected the chords' ranking: Processing was fastest for the tonic, followed by the dominant, and then the subdominant. The comparison with baseline contexts replicated the benefit of processing for tonic targets (Experiments 1 and 3) and the cost of processing for subdominant targets (Experiment 3), while dominant targets were situated at baseline level (Experiments 1 to 3). Findings indicate that listeners implicitly understand fine differences in tonal stabilities and confirm the special status of the tonic being the most expected and solely facilitated chord at the end of a tonal context. Findings are discussed with references to sensory and cognitive approaches of music perception.     

Learning harmony: the role of serial statistics

How do listeners learn about the statistical regularities underlying musical harmony? In traditional Western music, certain chords predict the occurrence of other chords: Given a particular chord, not all chords are equally likely to follow. In Experiments 1 and 2, we investigated whether adults make use of statistical information when learning new musical structures. Listeners were exposed to a novel musical system containing phrases generated using an artificial grammar. This new system contained statistical structure quite different from Western tonal music. Our results suggest that learners take advantage of the statistical patterning of chords to acquire new musical structures, similar to learning processes previously observed for language learning.     

Recognizing the component tones of a major chord.

Listeners judged whether a target tone was contained within a previously or subsequently presented major chord, and targets consisted of either the root, third, fifth, or tritone of the scale based on the root of the chords. Chord position influenced the relative recognition of targets, but listeners exhibited greater recognition of the fifth regardless of chord position (root, first inversion, second inversion). The data were not consistent with notions of root tracking or melody tracking. The data were broadly consistent with the notion that different chord positions may be harmonically equivalent (i.e., that listeners may recognize components of a chord regardless of chord position), with notions of analytic set and the importance of an instantiation of musical context for chord processing, and with the importance of the fifth in harmonic progression.     

Further investigation of harmonic priming in long contexts using musical timbre as surface marker to control for temporal effects

Harmonic priming studies have reported facilitated processing for chords that are harmonically related to the prime context. Responses to the target (the last chord of an 8-chord sequence) were faster and more accurate when the target was strongly related, i.e., a tonic chord, to the preceding prime context than when it was less related, i.e., a subdominant chord. Results have been interpreted in terms of musical expectations and processing speed: the prime allows listeners to develop expectations for future events which lead to facilitated processing of the most strongly expected event. The present experiment investigated an alternative hypothesis suggesting that the harmonic structure of the prime context might create an ambiguity about "when" to respond that is stronger in contexts ending on less related targets than in contexts ending on strongly related targets. A change of musical timbre was used as surface marker indicating without ambiguity the temporal occurrence of the target. Participants made speeded intonation judgments of the target, i.e., judging whether targets are acoustically consonant or dissonant. The findings replicate the previously reported priming effect and rule out that processing differences are solely due to ambiguities about when in time the target will occur.     

Influence of tonal and temporal expectations on chord processing and on completion judgments of chord sequences

Pitch and time are two principal form-bearing dimensions in Western tonal music. Research on melody perception has shown that listeners develop expectations about "What" note is coming next and "When" in time it will occur. Our study used sequences of chords (i.e., simultaneously sounding notes) to investigate the influence of these expectations on chord processing (Experiments 1 and 4) and subjective judgments of completion (Experiments 2 and 3). Both tasks showed an influence of tonal relations and temporal regularities: expected events occurring at the expected moment were processed faster and led to higher completion judgments. However, pitch and time dimensions interacted only for completion judgments. The present outcome suggests that for chord perception the influence of pitch and time might depend on the required processing: with a more global judgment favoring interactive influences in contrast to a task focusing on local chord processing.     

Influence of a tone’s tonal function on temporal change detection

Music cognition research has provided evidence that the tonal function of a musical event influences perception and memory. Our study investigated whether tonal function influences a basic temporal judgment, notably the detection of a temporal change disrupting a sequence’s regularity. The sequences consisted of six musical events presented in isochrony (or with the fifth event occurring earlier or later): Three chords (instilling a tonal context) were followed by a tone (repeated three times). The tones fulfilled one of two tonal functions in the tonal context. Participants had to detect whether the sequence contained a temporal change and were not informed about tonal manipulations. Discrimination performance (as measured by d’) showed an influence of tonal function on temporal change detection: Performance was better for the tonic tone (having the most important tonal function in the key) than for the unstable leading tone, the less stable mediant tone, and even than the stable dominant tone. The outcome shows the influence of listeners’ tonal knowledge on a perceptual time judgment and suggests that processing of tonal and temporal structures interact at some stage of processing.     

A perceptual investigation of polytonality

Summary Four experiments investigated the perception of tonal structure in polytonal music. The experiments used musical excerpts in which the upper stave of the music suggested a different key than the lower stave. In Experiment 1, listeners rated the goodness of fit of probe tones following an excerpt from Dubois's Circus. Results suggested that listeners were sensitive to two keys, and weighted them according to their perceived importance within the excerpt. Experiment 2 confirmed that music within each stave reliably conveyed key structure on its own. In Experiment 3, listeners rated probe tones following an excerpt from Milhaud's Sonata No. 1 for Piano, in which different keys were conveyed in widely separate pitch registers. Ratings were collected across three octaves. Listeners did not associate each key with a specific register. Rather, ratings for all three octave registers reflected only the key associated with the upper stave. Experiment 4 confirmed that the music within each stave reliably conveyed key structure on its own. It is suggested that when one key predominates in a polytonal context, other keys may not contribute to the overall perceived tonal structure. The influence of long-term knowledge and immediate context on the perception of tonal structure in polytonal music is discussed.     

Recognition of transposed melodies: Effects of pitch distance and harmonic distance

People easily recognize a familiar melody in a previously unheard key, but they also retain some key-specific information. Does the recognition of a transposed melody depend on either pitch distance or harmonic distance from the initially learned instances? Previous research has shown a stronger effect of pitch closeness than of harmonic similarity, but did not directly test for an additional effect of the latter variable. In the present experiment, we familiarized participants with a simple eight-note melody in two different keys (C and D) and then tested their ability to discriminate the target melody from foils in other keys. The transpositions included were to the keys of C# (close in pitch height, but harmonically distant), G (more distant in pitch, but harmonically close), and F# (more distant in pitch and harmonically distant). Across participants, the transpositions to F# and G were either higher or lower than the initially trained melodies, so that their average pitch distances from C and D were equated. A signal detection theory analysis confirmed that discriminability (d′) was better for targets and foils that were close in pitch distance to the studied exemplars. Harmonic similarity had no effect on discriminability, but it did affect response bias (c), in that harmonic similarity to the studied exemplars increased both hits and false alarms. Thus, both pitch distance and harmonic distance affect the recognition of transposed melodies, but with dissociable effects on discrimination and response bias.     

A grammar of action generates predictions in skilled musicians

The present study investigates shared representations of syntactic knowledge in music and action. We examined whether expectancy violations in musical harmonic sequences are also perceived as violations of the movement sequences necessary to produce them. Pianists imitated silent videos showing one hand playing chord sequences on a muted keyboard. Results indicate that, despite the absence of auditory feedback, imitation of a chord is fastest when it is congruent with the preceding harmonic context. This suggests that the harmonic rules implied by observed actions induce expectations that influence action execution. As evidence that these predictions are derived at a high representational level, imitation was more accurate for harmonically incongruent chords than for congruent chords executed with unconventional fingering. The magnitude of the effects of context and goal prioritization increased with musical training. Thus, musical training may lead to a domain-general representation of musical grammar, i.e., to a grammar of action.     

Repetition priming: Is music special?

Using short and long contexts, the present study investigated musical priming effects that are based on chord repetition and harmonic relatedness. A musical target (a chord) was preceded by either an identical prime or a different but harmonically related prime. In contrast to words, pictures, and environmental sounds, chord processing was not facilitated by repetition. Experiments 1 and 2 using single-chord primes showed either no significant difference between chord repetition and harmonic relatedness or facilitated processing for harmonically related targets. Experiment 3 using longer prime contexts showed that musical priming depended more on the musical function of the target in the preceding context than on target repetition. The effect of musical function was decreased, but not qualitatively changed, by chord repetition. The outcome of this study challenges predictions of sensory approaches and supports a cognitive approach of musical priming.     

Tonal strength and melody recognition after long and short delays

In a continuous-running-memory task, subjects heard novel seven-note melodies that were tested after delays of 11 sec (empty) or 39 sec (filled). Test items were transposed to new pitch levels (to moderately distant keys in the musical sense)and included exact transpositions (targets), same-contour lures with altered pitch intervals, and new-contour lures. Melodies differed in tonal strength (degree of conformity to a musical key) and were tonally strong, tonally weak, or atonal. False alarms to same-contour lures decreased over the longer delay period, but only for tonal stimuli. In agreement with previous studies, discrimination of detailed changes in pitch intervals improved with increased delay, whereas discrimination of more global contour information declined, again only for tonal stimuli. These results suggest that poor short-delay performance in rejecting same-contour lures arises from confusion that is based on the similarity of tonality between standard stimuli and lures. If a test item has the same contour and a similar tonality to a just-presented item, subjects tend to accept it. After a delay filled with melodies in other tonalities, the salience of key information recedes, and subjects base their judgments on more detailed pattern information (namely, exact pitch intervals). The fact that tonality affects judgments of melodic contour indicates that contour is not an entirely separable feature of melodies but rather that a melody with its contour constitutes an integrated perceptual whole.     

Global context effect in normal and scrambled musical sequences

The processing of chords is facilitated when they are harmonically related to the context in which they appear. The purpose of this study was to assess whether this harmonic priming effect depends on the version (normal vs. scrambled) of the context chord sequences. Normal sequences were scrambled by permuting chords two-by-two (Experiment 1) or four-by-four (Experiments 2 and 3). Normal chord sequences were judged less coherent than scrambled sequences. However, normal chord sequences showed facilitation for harmonically related rather than for unrelated targets, and this effect of relatedness did not diminish for scrambled sequences (Experiments 1-3). The data of musicians and nonmusicians were interpreted with Bharucha's (1987) spreading activation framework. Simulations suggested that harmonic priming results from activation that spreads via schematic knowledge of Western harmony and accumulates in short-term memory over the course of the chord sequence.     

Tonal strength and melody recognition after long and short delays.

In a continuous-running-memory task, subjects heard novel seven-note melodies that were tested after delays of 11 sec (empty) or 39 sec (filled). Test items were transposed to new pitch levels (to moderately distant keys in the musical sense) and included exact transpositions (targets), same-contour lures with altered pitch intervals, and new-contour lures. Melodies differed in tonal strength (degree of conformity to a musical key) and were tonally strong, tonally weak, or atonal. False alarms to same-contour lures decreased over the longer delay period, but only for tonal stimuli. In agreement with previous studies, discrimination of detailed changes in pitch intervals improved with increased delay, whereas discrimination of more global contour information declined, again only for tonal stimuli. These results suggest that poor short-delay performance in rejecting same-contour lures arises from confusion that is based on the similarity of tonality between standard stimuli and lures. If a test item has the same contour and a similar tonality to a just-presented item, subjects tend to accept it. After a delay filled with melodies in other tonalities, the salience of key information recedes, and subjects base their judgments on more detailed pattern information (namely, exact pitch intervals). The fact that tonality affects judgments of melodic contour indicates that contour is not an entirely separable feature of melodies but rather that a melody with its contour constitutes an integrated perceptual whole.     

The costs and benefits of tonal centers for chord processing

Harmonic priming studies have shown that a musical context, with its established tonal center, influences target chord processing. This study investigated costs and benefits of priming tonal centers for target processing by adding a baseline condition (sequences without a specific tonal center). Results confirmed harmonic priming, with faster processing for related than for unrelated and less related targets (tonic chord, out-of-key chord, subdominant chord). Comparing targets in baseline contexts with targets in sequences with well-established tonal centers revealed a benefit of processing for related targets but a cost of processing for unrelated and less related targets. Findings are discussed in terns of tonal knowledge activation and suggest that an activated tonal center gives rise to strong expectations for the tonic.