Pitch: a Key Factor in Tonality Induction

J. FERNANDO ANTA

Music Perception

University of California Press

Lugar: California; Año: 2015 vol. 32 p. 413 - 433

0730-7829

Two experiments investigated the role of pitch-related information in tonality induction. In both experiments, participants were asked: i) to identify (sing) the tonic of either an original sequence of tones, or a distorted version of it in which pitch-class distribution was preserved but pitch-class ordering, pitch contour, and/or pitch proximity were altered; and ii) to rate how confident they were in the tonic they identified. In Experiment 2, the sequences were presented with an isochronous rhythm, to eliminate the potential confounding effects of time-related information. The results of both experiments showed that participants´ ability to identify the tonic of the sequences as well as their confidence in the tonic they identified decreased when pitch-class ordering was distorted, and also when pitch proximity was reduced. This suggests that tonality induction not only involves the identification of abstract pitch-class structures, but it also acts as a pattern-matching process.