Effect of harmonic relatedness on the detection of temporal asynchronies

Percept Psychophys. 2002 May;64(4):640-9. doi: 10.3758/bf03194732.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Association Learning*
  • Attention*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Music*
  • Pitch Perception*
  • Psychoacoustics
  • Time Perception*