The role of tone height, melodic contour, and tone chroma in melody recognition

Conducted 2 experiments with 21 university students, who were taught new melodies rather than highly familiar folk songs as in earlier studies. Results replicate previous studies (e.g., W. L. Idson and D. W. Massaro, 1978) using familiar folk songs. Transformations of the original melodies were accurately recognized when tone height was violated, but both melodic contour and tone chroma were maintained. Violating both tone height and contour while maintaining chroma produced extremely poor recognition. Performance was intermediate when just melodic contour was preserved. There is now good evidence to support the idea that melodic contour and tone chroma, in addition to tone height, contribute to recognition of both familiar and recently learned melodies. (10 ref)