Processing Surprise Tension in Tonal Melodies (original) (raw)
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Harmonic expectation and affect in Western music: Effects of attention and training
Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 2007
We investigated the effects of selective attention and musical training on the processing of harmonic expectations. In Experiment 1, participants with and without musical training were required to respond to the contour of melodies as they were presented with chord progressions that were highly expected, slightly unexpected, or extremely unexpected. Reaction time and accuracy results showed that when attention was focused on the melody, musically trained participants were still sensitive to different harmonic expectations, whereas participants with no musical training were undifferentiated across expectation conditions. In Experiment 2, participants were required to listen holistically to the entire chord progression and to rate their preference for each chord progression. Results from preference ratings showed that all the participants, with or without musical training, were sensitive to manipulations of harmonic expectations. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that changing the speed of presentation of chord progressions did not affect the pattern of results. The four experiments together highlight the importance of attentional focus in musical training, especially as it relates to the processing of harmonic expectations.
Affective Priming in Music Listening
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2014
Three behavioral experiments were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that perceived emotion activates expectations for upcoming musical events. Happy, sad and neutral pictures were used as emotional primes. In Experiments 1 and 2, expectations for the continuation of neutral melodic openings were tested using implicit task that required participants to judge the tuning of the first note of the melodic continuation. This first note was either high or low in pitch (Experiment 1) or followed either a narrow or wide melodic interval (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 assessed expectations using an explicit task, and required participants to rate the quality of melodic continuations, which varied in register and interval size. Experiments 1 and 3 confirmed that emotion indeed modulates expectations for melodic continuations in a high or low register. The effect of emotion on expectations for melodic intervals was significant only in Experiment 3, although there was a trend for happiness to increase expectations for wide intervals in Experiment 2.
Auditory expectation: The information dynamics of music perception and cognition
Topics in Cognitive Science, 2012
Following in a psychological and musicological tradition beginning with Leonard Meyer, and continuing through David Huron, we present a functional, cognitive account of the phenomenon of expectation in music, grounded in computational, probabilistic modeling. We summarize a range of evidence for this approach, from psychology, neuroscience, musicology, linguistics, and creativity studies, and argue that simulating expectation is an important part of understanding a broad range of human faculties, in music and beyond.
Expectation and anticipation as key elements for the constitution of meaning in music
Teorema Revista Internacional De Filosofia, 2012
abordo en el presente artículo los aspectos siguientes: ¿de qué manera los oyentes reconocen en su propia experiencia perceptiva musical un significado especial?, y, ¿cuáles son los aspectos principales que determinan el significado subjetivo que una experiencia musical adquiere en un contexto y en una situación específicos? Centrándome en la manera en que los oyentes perciben la música, mi objetivo principal es encontrar los elementos clave que influyen en la creación de significado de las experiencias musicales cotidianas. En particular, analizo un proceso cognitivo especialmente importante para la construcción del significado durante el desarrollo de un acto perceptivo: el proceso de la expectación. De este modo, propongo una distinción conceptual entre "expectativa" y "anticipación", argumentando que una y otra influyen de manera diferente en la experiencia perceptiva de la música y, por tanto, en el significado que ésta adquiere para cada individuo.
Harmonic and rhythmic influences on musical expectancy
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1994
The effects of harmony and rhythm on expectancy formation were studied in two experiments. In both studies, we generated musical passages consisting of a melodic line accompanied by four harmonic (chord) events. These sequences varied in their harmonic content, the rhythmic periodicity of the three context chords prior to the final chord, and the ending time of the final chord itself. In Experiment 1, listeners provided ratings for how well the final chord in a chord sequence fit their expectations for what was to come next; analyses revealed subtle changes in ratings as a function of both harmonic and rhythmic variation. Experiment 2 extended these results; listeners made a speeded reaction time judgment on whether the final chord of a sequence belonged with its set of context chords. Analysis of the reaction time data suggested that harmonic and rhythmic variation also influenced the speed of musical processing. These results are interpreted with reference to current models of music cognition, and they highlight the need for rhythmical weighting factors within the psychological representation of tonal/pitch information.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2006
& The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of harmonic expectancy violations on emotions. Subjective response measures for tension and emotionality, as well as electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR), were recorded from 24 subjects (12 musicians and 12 nonmusicians) to observe the effect of expectancy violations on subjective and physiological measures of emotions. In addition, an electroencephalogram was recorded to observe the neural correlates for detecting these violations. Stimuli consisted of three matched versions of six Bach chorales, which differed only in terms of one chord (harmonically either expected, unexpected or very unexpected). Musicians' and nonmusicians' responses were also compared. Tension, overall subjective emotionality, and EDA increased with an increase in harmonic unexpectedness. Analysis of the event-related potentials revealed an early negativity (EN) for both the unexpected and the very unexpected harmonies, taken to reflect the detection of the unexpected event. The EN in response to very unexpected chords was significantly larger in amplitude than the EN in response to merely unexpected harmonic events. The ENs did not differ in amplitude between the two groups but peaked earlier for musicians than for nonmusicians. Both groups also showed a P3 component in response to the very unexpected harmonies, which was considerably larger for musicians and may reflect the processing of stylistic violations of Western classical music. & D
Musical expectancy: The influence of musical structure on emotional response
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 2008
Response to 'Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms' by Juslin and Vastfjall. Abstract: When examining how emotions are evoked through music, the role of musical expectancy is often surprisingly under-credited. This mechanism, however, is most strongly tied to the actual structure of the music, and thus is important when considering how music elicits emotions. We briefly summarize Leonard Meyer’s theoretical framework on musical expectancy and emotion and cite relevant research in the area.