A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005 Development of music perception Dowling, W.J. (1999). Development of music perception.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Development of music perception

Dowling, W.J. (1999). Development of music perception and cognition. In Deutsch, D. The Psychology of Music, Chapter 15.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

A. Infancy

1. Prenatal experience

2. Perceptual grouping

3. Pitch

4. Melodic pitch patterns

5. Rhythm

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Prenatal experience

Even before birth, the infant appears to music, or at least to patterns of auditory stimulation.

Very young infants recognize their mother's voice, and this may derive from neonatal experience with the mother's characteristic patterns of pitch and stress accents.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Perceptual grouping

Auditory stream segregation (2 pitch alternating rapidly)

Experiment: AAAEEE ( 440Hz, 660 Hz) Temporal gaps:

AAAE EEE noticed AAA EEE not noticed

Explanation: An additional gap separating patterns that were already perceptually separate was simply lost in processing (as it tends to be with adults)

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Pitch

Octave equivalence Pitch constancy Pitch discrimination

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Melodic pitch patterns

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Similarities between infants and adults

easily notice differences in melodic contours memory for melodies notice changes in intervals and pitch levels of

melodies find changes of melodic contour more salient

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Differences between infants and adults in the processing of pitch information in melodies arise from the acculturation of the adults in the tonal scale system of a particular culture

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Constraints

main: octave equivalence weaker: importance given to the perfect fifth,

coupled with a limit of seven or so pitch classes within the octave (G. Miller (1956), The magical number seven)

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

On the inherent importance of the perfect fifth

Detecting changes of single pitches with 9- to 11-month-olds (conditioned head turning) C-E-G-E-C C-E-G#-E-C

Result: No difference Children 4 and 6 years of age did show a

difference favoring the diatonic scale The acculturation in the tonal structure system

is already well begun by that age.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

More complicated material: The melody was transposed to a new pitch with each repetition

7- to 11-month-olds: changes in C-E-G-E-C easier to detect

6-month-olds: no difference

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Non-Western pattern: a Javanese pélog scale pattern does not contain a perfect fifth, and some of the pitches lie approximated quarter steps in between the semitones on the piano

The 6-month-olds (equally good for diatonic and nondiatonic Western patterns, see above) decreased to chance levels for the Javanese pattern: acculturated at the level of Western tonal material, or something about scale structures constructed with a logarithmic modulus such as the semitone?

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Rhythm

Temporal grouping of tone sequences is much like that of adults

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

B. Childhood

1. Singing

2. Absolute pitch

3. Melodic contour and tonality

4. Rhythm

5. Emotion

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Singing

9 – 12 months: spontaneously singing vocal play over the child's entire pitch range patterns of vowel sounds

18 months: generating recognizable, repeatable songs 24 months: brief phrases repeated over and over; contours are

replicable, but pitch wanders; same melodic and rhythmic contour is repeated at different pitch levels; rhythm of phrases is coherent, with rhythms often those of speech patterns; accents within phrases and the timing of the phrases themselves is determined by a regular beat pattern; Lack stable pitch framework (scale) and use very limited set phrase contours in one song – just one or two

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

36 months: pitch still wanders but is locally stable within one phrase

4-year-olds: stick to stable scale pattern within a phrase but would often slip to a new key for the next phrase (as 3-year-olds in the example)

5-year-olds: can hold a stable tonality throughout the song

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Absolute pitch

Absolute pitch is the ability to identify pitches by their note names even in the absence of musical context.

Absolute pitch is typically quite rare even among musicians, occurring in only about 4 – 8%

Cultures where early music training is encouraged, such as in present-Japan, the incidence of absolute pitch among the musically trained is possibly near 50%.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

"Early learning" hypothesis: absolute pitch can be acquired by anyone, but only during a critical period ending in the fifth or sixth year

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Melody contour and tonality

4- to 6-year olds: discriminating melodies on the basis of contours recognizing same-contour imitations of familiar

melodies same-contour imitations are seen as versions of the

tune

First graders have trouble to describe pitch direction

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Memory for tone sequences (3,4,6 notes) On each trail, a standard melody was followed

by a comparison melody in which one note of the standard had been changed by 1 or 2 semitones.

Task: the subject had to say which of the notes had been changed

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

5-year-olds: chance level with both tonal and atonal stimuli

6-to 10-year-olds: results for tonal and atonal sequences diverged, with better performance on tonal sequences

12-year-olds: processing on atonal sequences caught up. For 4- and 6-tone sequences, the same pattern appeared, but the tonal-atonal difference remained until adulthood.

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Rhythm

1. Development of the ability to control attention in relation to the temporal sequence of events ("Hidden melodies")

2. Development of the ability to remember and produce rhythmic patterns

A.Diederich – International University Bremen – USC – MMM – Spring 2005

Emotion

4-year-olds: above chance level in assigning one of four affective labels (happy, sad, angry, afraid, using schematic faces)

8-year-olds and adults, but not 5-year-olds, applied "happy" and "sad" consistently to excerpts in the major and minor, respectively

Only adults consistently chose "happy" for ascending contours and "sad" for descending.