Tonal Centers and Expectancy: Facilitation or Inhibition of Chords at the Top of the Harmonic Hierarchy?

Autor/inn/en	Tillmann, Barbara; Janata, Petr; Birk, Jeffrey; Bharucha, Jamshed J.
Titel	Tonal Centers and Expectancy: Facilitation or Inhibition of Chords at the Top of the Harmonic Hierarchy?
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34 (2008) 4, S.1031-1043 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0096-1523
DOI	10.1037/0096-1523.34.4.1031
Schlagwörter	Reaction Time; Cognitive Processes; Music; Music Theory; Recognition (Psychology); Auditory Perception; Auditory Stimuli; Experimental Psychology; Context Effect; College Students; Research Design; New Hampshire + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Reaktionsvermögen; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Musik; Musiktheorie; Recognition; Wiedererkennen; Auditive Wahrnehmung; Akustische Wahrnehmung; Akustik; Auditive Stimulation; Experimentelle Psychologie; Collegestudent; Forschungsdesign
Abstract	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. (Contains 7 footnotes, 5 figures, and 3 tables.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10