Modularity in musical processing: the automaticity of harmonic priming

Three experiments investigated the modularity of harmonic expectations that are based on cultural schemata despite the availability of more predictive veridical information. Participants were presented with prime-target chord pairs and made an intonation judgment about each target. Schematic expectation was manipulated by the combination of prime and target, with some transitions being schematically more probable than others. Veridical information in the form of prime-target previews, local transition probabilities, or valid versus invalid previews was also provided. Processing was facilitated when a schematically probable target chord followed the prime. Furthermore, this effect was independent of all manipulations of veridical expectation. A solution to L. B. Meyer's (1967b) query "On Rehearing Music" is suggested, in which schematic knowledge contributes to harmonic expectation in a modular manner regardless of whether any veridical knowledge exists.     

Visual signal detection measured by event-related potentials

We compared the performance of 10 well-functioning university students who had experienced a mild head injury (MHI) an average of 6.4 years previously and 12 controls on a series of standard psychometric tests of attention, memory, and thinking and on a series of auditory oddball vigilance tasks to which we also took event-related potentials (ERPs). The MHI and Control groups performed equivalently on all the psychometric tasks and on self-report questionnaires of everyday memory and attention difficulties. The MHI group performed more slowly and with lower accuracy on only the most difficult of the oddball tasks, yet they showed substantially and significantly reduced P300 amplitudes and subsequent attentuation on all the oddball tasks, both easy and difficult. There were no alterations of N1, P2, and N2 components. These data suggest that despite excellent behavioral recovery, subtle information processing deficits involving attention nevertheless may persist long after the original injury and may not be apparent on a variety of standard psychometric measures.