Method

Participants.Twenty-eight participants (out of 35) completed the task successfully. Twelve were moderately experienced with average instrumental instruction of 7.1 years (SD = 4.6). None of the other participants had instrumental instruction.

Material. In Experiment 1, the temporal position of the target (first beat of a third bar) might have caused this tone to be perceived as an opening to a next bar, thus imposing weaker constraints on the expected tones than it would be the case for the last tone of a bar. Experiment 2 shortened the melodies so that the target was the last tone of the second bar, aiming to enhance the integration of the target into the prime context and thus the tonal relatedness effect.

Apparatus. For the out-of-tune condition, Cubase’s micro-tuner was used to rise the pitch of target tones by 35 cents (i.e., +2% in Hz for this frequency range).

Procedure. The training phase consisted of 16 short melodies and 10 example melodies. The experimental phase consisted of 48 melodies (i.e., 12 melody pairs with the target being played once in-tune and once out-of-tune).