Incidental Learning of Melodic Structure of North Indian Music

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

Scales, sets of discrete pitches that form the basis of melodies, are thought to be one of the most universal hallmarks of music. But we know relatively little about cross-cultural diversity of scales or how they evolved. To remedy this, we assemble a cross-cultural database (Database of Musical Scales: DaMuSc) of scale data, collected over the past century by various ethnomusicologists. Statistical analyses of the data highlight that certain intervals (e.g., the octave, fifth, second) are used frequently across cultures. Despite some diversity among scales, it is the similarities across societies which are most striking: step intervals are restricted to 100-400 cents; most scales are found close to equidistant 5- and 7-note scales. We discuss potential mechanisms of variation and selection in the evolution of scales, and how the assembled data may be used to examine the root causes of convergent evolution.

Interpreting Rhythm as Parsing: Syntactic-Processing Operations Predict the Migration of Visual Flashes as Perceived During Listening to Musical Rhythms

Music can be interpreted by attributing syntactic relationships to sequential musical events, and, computationally, such musical interpretation represents an analogous combinatorial task to syntactic processing in language. While this perspective has been primarily addressed in the domain of harmony, we focus here on rhythm in the Western tonal idiom, and we propose for the first time a framework for modeling the moment-by-moment execution of processing operations involved in the interpretation of music. Our approach is based on (1) a music-theoretically motivated grammar formalizing the competence of rhythmic interpretation in terms of three basic types of dependency (preparation, syncopation, and split; Rohrmeier, 2020), and (2) psychologically plausible predictions about the complexity of structural integration and memory storage operations, necessary for parsing hierarchical dependencies, derived from the dependency locality theory (Gibson, 2000). With a behavioral experiment, we exemplify an empirical implementation of the proposed theoretical framework. One hundred listeners were asked to reproduce the location of a visual flash presented while listening to three rhythmic excerpts, each exemplifying a different interpretation under the formal grammar. The hypothesized execution of syntactic-processing operations was found to be a significant predictor of the observed displacement between the reported and the objective location of the flashes. Overall, this study presents a theoretical approach and a first empirical proof-of-concept for modeling the cognitive process resulting in such interpretation as a form of syntactic parsing with algorithmic similarities to its linguistic counterpart. Results from the present small-scale experiment should not be read as a final test of the theory, but they are consistent with the theoretical predictions after controlling for several possible confounding factors and may form the basis for further large-scale and ecological testing.

Musical reward across the lifespan

Music is ubiquitous. Despite the fact that most people find music enjoyable, there are individual differences in the degree to which listeners derive pleasure from music. However, there has been little focus on how musical reward may change across the lifespan. Some theories predict that there would be little change, or even an increase in musical reward across the lifespan, while others suggest that older adults may have decreased capacity for musical reward. Here, we investigated musical reward across the lifespan. Participants consisted of American adults ranging between 20-85 years old (n = 20 participants in each 10-year age bin). Participants in Study 1 completed the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ), which is a multi-dimensional assessment of musical reward. We found a negative correlation between age and BMRQ scores, suggesting decreases in musical reward across the lifespan. When investigating which components were driving this effect, we found that the music seeking subscale was the strongest predictor of age. Participants in Study 2 completed the Aesthetic Experiences in Music Scale (AES-M), which focuses on intense emotional responses to music. In contrast to the BMRQ, we found no relationship between age and scores on the AES-M, suggesting that strong emotional responses to music are consistent across the lifespan. These results have implications for the use of music as a therapeutic tool in older adults. In addition, this work points to the importance of considering age when investigating reward for music and suggests that the ways individuals experience music may change across the lifespan.

Dynamic development of intuitions and explicit knowledge during implicit learning

Implicit learning refers to learning without conscious awareness of the content acquired. Theoretical frameworks of human cognition suggest that intuitions develop based on incomplete perceptions of regularity during implicit learning and, in turn, lead to the development of more explicit, consciously-accessible knowledge. Surprisingly, however, this putative information processing pathway (i.e., implicit learning ➔ intuition ➔ explicit knowledge) has yet to be empirically demonstrated. The present study investigated the relationship between implicit learning, intuitions, and explicit knowledge using a modified Serial Reaction Time Task. Results indicate that intuitions of implicitly-learned patterns emerge prior to the development of explicit knowledge. Moreover, intuition timing and accuracy were significantly associated with accuracy of explicit reports. We did not, however, find that stronger implicit learners developed more accurate intuitions. Our findings suggest a crucial role of intuition in the formation of explicit knowledge from implicit learning.

Asymmetry in scales enhances learning of new musical structures

Despite the remarkable variability music displays across cultures, certain recurrent musical features motivate the hypothesis that fundamental cognitive principles constrain the way music is produced. One such feature concerns the structure of musical scales. The vast majority of musical cultures use scales that are not uniformly symmetric-that is, scales that contain notes spread unevenly across the octave. Here we present evidence that the structure of musical scales has a substantial impact on how listeners learn new musical systems. Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that nonuniformity facilitates the processing of melodies. Novel melodic stimuli were composed based on artificial grammars using scales with different levels of symmetry. Experiment 1 tested the acquisition of tonal hierarchies and melodic regularities on three different 12-tone equal-tempered scales using a finite-state grammar. Experiments 2 and 3 used more flexible Markov-chain grammars and were designed to generalize the effect to 14-tone and 16-tone equal-tempered scales. The results showed that performance was significantly enhanced by scale structures that specified the tonal space by providing unique intervallic relations between notes. These results suggest that the learning of novel musical systems is modulated by the symmetry of scales, which in turn may explain the prevalence of nonuniform scales across musical cultures.

Western listeners detect boundary hierarchy in Indian music: a segmentation study

How are listeners able to follow and enjoy complex pieces of music? Several theoretical frameworks suggest links between the process of listening and the formal structure of music, involving a division of the musical surface into structural units at multiple hierarchical levels. Whether boundaries between structural units are perceivable to listeners unfamiliar with the style, and are identified congruently between naïve listeners and experts, remains unclear. Here, we focused on the case of Indian music, and asked 65 Western listeners (of mixed levels of musical training; most unfamiliar with Indian music) to intuitively segment into phrases a recording of sitar ālāp of two different rāga-modes. Each recording was also segmented by two experts, who identified boundary regions at section and phrase levels. Participant- and region-wise scores were computed on the basis of "clicks" inside or outside boundary regions (hits/false alarms), inserted earlier or later within those regions (high/low "promptness"). We found substantial agreement-expressed as hit rates and click densities-among participants, and between participants' and experts' segmentations. The agreement and promptness scores differed between participants, levels, and recordings. We found no effect of musical training, but detected real-time awareness of grouping completion and boundary hierarchy. The findings may potentially be explained by underlying general bottom-up processes, implicit learning of structural relationships, cross-cultural musical similarities, or universal cognitive capacities.

Expertise Moderates Incidentally Learned Associations Between Words and Images

Individuals with expertise in a domain of knowledge demonstrate superior learning for information in their area of expertise, relative to non-experts. In this study, we investigated whether expertise benefits extend to learning associations between words and images that are encountered incidentally. Sport-knowledge-experts and non-sports-experts encountered previously unknown faces through a basic perceptual task. The faces were incidentally presented as candidates for a position in a sports team (a focus of knowledge for only the sports-experts) or for a job in a business (a focus of knowledge for both the sports-experts and non-sports-experts). Participants later received a series of surprise memory tests that tested: ability to recognize each face as being old, the amount of information recalled about each face, and ability to select a correct face from equally familiar alternatives. Relative to non-sports-experts, participants with superior sports expertise were able to better recall the information associated with each face and could better select associated faces from similarly familiar options for the hypothetical prospective athletes. Hypothetical job candidates were recalled and selected at similar levels of performance in both groups. The groups were similarly familiar with the images (in a yes/no recognition memory test) when the faces were prospective athletes or job candidates. These findings suggest a specific effect of expertise on associative memory between words and images, but not for individual items, supporting a dissociation in how expertise modulates the human memory system for word–image pairings.