General method

Participants. Participants were students at the University of Lyon. Each participant was included in only one of the experiments. Musical expertise was measured by years of instrumental instruction: Participants were considered as moderately experienced participants when they had at least three years of instrumental instruction, and as less-experienced participants otherwise.

Material. Pairs of melodies were composed in such a way that the two melodies within a pair were in different tonalities while being acoustically as matched as possible (see Figure 1). Melodies within a pair differed by either their first bar, which was transposed between the two melodies (Experiment 1a), or one (possibly repeated) tone in their first bar, which was inflected by an accidental (Experiment 1b and 2). The total duration of the melodies was 2.5 four-beat bars (Experiment 1) or 2 four-beat bars (Experiment 2). The two melodies of a pair had an identical second part, but the manipulation in the first part caused the last tone to have the tonal degree of a mediant in one melody and the tonal degree of a leading tone in the other melody. This construction of the melodies kept constant local sensory influences. Twelve pairs were used in Experiment 1a and 2, and eleven in Experiment 1b. Melodies were played at a tempo of 750 ms per beat (q = 80, Experiment 1) or 789.5 ms per beat (q = 76, Experiment 2). This resulted in an overall duration of 8000 ms (Experiment 1) or 7000 ms (Experiment 2), with the last tone sounding respectively for 2000 and 1474 ms because of instrumental resonance.

Apparatus. Melodies were created in midi with Digital Performer 5.3 software (Mark of the Unicorn), and recorded as sound files with a Yamaha S03 synthesizer in Experiment 1 and with Cubase SX2 software (Steinberg) and the piano VST “The Grand” (Steinberg) in Experiment 2. All experiments were run on PsyScope software (Cohen, McWhinney, Flatt & Provost, 1993).

Procedure. Target tone processing was measured with a timbre task (Experiment 1) or an intonation task (Experiment 2). All priming experiments contained a training phase and an experimental phase. In Experiment 1, the training phase consisted in judging the timbre of single tones, and then the timbre of the last tone of example melodies that had the same structure as the test melodies. In Experiment 2, the training phase consisted in judging the last tone of short melodies (i.e., one four-beat bar long, ending on either the mediant or the leading tone) and of example melodies that had the same structure as the test melodies. In the experimental phase, all test melodies were presented once in either random (Experiment 1a) or pseudo-random orders (separating the two melodies of a pair by at least four trials, Experiment 1b and 2) for each participant. For all tasks and phases, participants were instructed to judge the target tone as quickly and as accurately as possible. Participants answered by pressing one of two keys on the computer keyboard. An incorrect response was followed by an alerting feedback sound, and a correct response stopped the sounding of the target to encourage participants to respond as quickly as possible. The target was followed by a noise mask and participants had to press a third key to listen to the next trial.

Data analysis. Participants with less than 60% of correct responses or with a mean of correct response times longer than 1000 ms were excluded from statistical analyses. Percentages of correct responses and correct response times were analyzed by 2 x 2 ANOVAs with participants as random variable and Tonal Relatedness (tonic / leading tone) and either Target Timbre (Timbre A / Timbre B, Experiment 1) or Pitch Deviation (in-tune / out-of-tune, Experiment 2) as within-participants factors. For correct response times, the possible effects of musical expertise were investigated by adding Musical Expertise (moderately experienced / less-experienced) as a between-participants factor in supplementary ANOVAs. Figure 1. Examples of the melodic pairs used in Experiments 1a (A), 1b (B), and 2 (C). Sound files of these examples are available at http://olfac.univ-lyon1.fr/bt-sound.html. A) The target tone A is the mediant in the first melody, which is in F major, but the transposition of the first bar causes it to be the leading tone in the second melody, which is in Bb major. B) The target tone F# is the mediant in the first melody, which is in D Major, but the C§ causes it to be the leading tone in the second melody, which is in G Major. C) The target tone C is the mediant in the first melody, which is in Ab major, but the Gb causes it to be the leading tone in the second melody, which is in Db major.