The Statistical Learning Of Musical Expectancy

This project investigated the statistical learning of musical expectancy. As a secondary goal, the effects of the perceptual properties of tone set familiarity (Western vs. Bohlen-Pierce) and textural complexity (melody vs. harmony) on the robustness of that learning process were assessed. A series of five experiments was conducted, varying in terms of these perceptual properties, the grammatical structure used to generate musical sequences, and the methods used to measure musical expectancy. Results indicated that expectancies can indeed be developed following statistical learning, particularly for materials composed from familiar tone sets. Moreover, some expectancy effects were observed in the absence of the ability to successfully discriminate between grammatical and ungrammatical items. The effect of these results on our current understanding of expectancy formation is discussed, as is the appropriateness of the behavioural methods used in this research.

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Vuvan, Dominique

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Schmuckler, Mark

• music cognition
• statistical learning
• priming
• expectancy
• memory

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/34954

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/34954