Transcript No Slide Title

Tonal Violations Interact with Lexical Processing:
Evidence from Cross-modal Priming
Meagan E. Curtis1 and Jamshed J. Bharucha2
1Dept.
of Psych. & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
EXPERIMENT 1: METHODS
Some aspects of a stimulus are processed in a
multi-modal manner and can be informative
across modalities. For instance, a sound
emanating from a specific location will
draw attention to that location and allow for
faster processing of visual and haptic
information coming from that direction.
Our investigations examine whether specific
aspects of music are processed in a multi-modal
manner, allowing for cross-modal priming
between the auditory and visual systems.
MUSICAL EXPECTANCY
Subjects
Twenty-four volunteers from the Dartmouth
community
Behavioral task
Decide as quickly and accurately as possible
whether the visual stimulus is a word or a
nonword
Trial
pagic
The goal of our investigations was to determine
whether musical expectancy violations can be
informative across modalities, alerting the
perceptual systems to anticipate other low
probability stimuli.
Expectancy can be easily modulated using
musical stimuli.Once a tonal context has been
established, listeners expect subsequent chords
and notes to adhere to the established tonality.
If tonality is violated, an expectancy violation
occurs.
+
Random tones
(500 ms)
Fixation
Context chord
(3000 ms)
Time
RESULTS
Expected
Target
Organ
C
G
##
Unexpected
Target
Organ
#
C
#
F#
Target Chord
Target Chord
F(1,9)=5.9, p=.04
Subjects
Ten volunteers from the Dartmouth
Community
Participation Criterion
All subjects were given a chord discrimination
pretest. Only those who could perform the task
significantly above the level of chance could
participate.
Behavioral tasks
Decide as quickly and accurately as possible
whether the visual stimulus is a word or a
nonword. Then decide whether the context chord
and the target chord are related or unrelated.
Participants heard chord progressions in which
the target chord either adhered to or violated the
established tonality. A visual discrimination task
was presented simultaneously with the target
chord. The visual stimuli consisted of familiar
and novel stimuli: words and nonwords.
Target
Chord
12345 7
EXPERIMENT 2: METHODS
Word/ Nonword
Target chord
(1000 ms)
STIMULI
Context
Chord
Follow Up
In experiment 1, participants were not
required to attend to the auditory stimuli. They
were instructed to concentrate on the visual
task. In experiment 2, participants were
required to attend to the auditory stimuli. They
were asked to perform a chord discrimination
task after the word discrimination task. We
anticipated that the chord discriminations would
be influenced by the visual stimuli, just as the
word discriminations were influenced by the
auditory stimuli in experiment 1.
F(1,23)=5.1, p=.03
Related/ Unrelated
(Displayed until
response occurs)
Participants were faster to identify familiar
visual stimuli (words)when they were
presented with the expected target chord
than when the chord was unexpected.
However, participants were faster to
identify novel visual stimuli (nonwords)
when they were presented with the
unexpected target chord than when the
chord was expected.
chord?
Trial
narse
+
Word/ Nonword
Target chord
(1000 ms maximum)
Fixation
Context chord
(3000 ms)
Time
Random tones
(500 ms)
Note: The same stimuli were used in experiments 1 and
2
Target Chord
F(1,9)=6.5, p=.03
The results of experiment 1 were replicated.
Additionally, the error rates to the chord
discrimination task reveal a similar effect;
words influenced participants to judge
chords as being related, whereas nonwords
influenced them to judge chords as being
unrelated.
CONCLUSIONS
Musical expectancy and lexical familiarity
appear to be processed in a multi-modal manner.
Low probability stimuli can be informative
across modalities, alerting the perceptual
systems to prepare for other low probability
stimuli, whereas high probability stimuli alert the
perceptual systems to anticipate other high
probability stimuli.