Do untrained listeners possess schematic knowledge about tonality?

LÓPEZ, GABRIEL F.; ANTA, J. FERNANDO

Simposio; 15º Simpósio Internacional de Cognição e Artes Musicais; 2021

It has been argued that knowledge about the tonal hierarchy of tones in tonal contexts simply arises from exposure to tonal music (e.g., Lerdahl, 2001). However, there is evidence that without formal training, listeners interpret the same tonal relationships as belonging to mutually-excluding tonal categories (Kristop, Moreno, & Anta, 2020), which suggests that in untrained listeners the experience of tonality is contingent to other, no-tonal factors. To examine this issue in more detail, in the study reported here untrained listeners were asked to group musical stimuli whose last tone conveyed the same-or-a similar enough sense of stability. We found that participants did not consistently group stimuli based on tonal considerations. This suggests that, without training, the schematization of tonal knowledge is severely limited.