Abstract
Categorical perception was investigated in a series of experiments
on the perception of melodic musical intervals (sequential frequency
ratios). When procedures equivalent to those typically used in speech-perception
experiments were employed, i.e., determination of identification
and discrimination functions for stimuli separated by equal physical
increments), musical intervals were perceived categorically by trained
musicians. When a variable-step-size (adaptive) discrimination procedure
was used, evidence of categorical perception (in the form of smaller
interval-width DL's for ratios at identification category boundaries
than for ratios within categories), although present initially, largely
disappeared after subjects had reached asymptotic performance. However,
equal-step-size discrimination functions obtained after observers
had reached asymptotic performance in the adaptive paradigm were
not substantially different from those initially obtained. The results
of other experiments imply that this dependence of categorical perception
on procedure may be related to differences in stimulus uncertainty
between the procedures. An experiment on the perception of melodic
intervals by musically untrained observers showed no evidence for
the existence of "natural" categories for musical intervals.
- (psychology),reaction
- discrimination,practice
- humans,judgment,music,pitch
- perception,interval,melody,music,perception
- time,categorical
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