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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Perceived complexity of western and African folk melodies by western and African listeners

subject

description

Stylistic knowledge and enculturation play a significant role in music perception, although the importance of psychophysical cues in perception of emotions in music has been acknowledged. The psychophysical cues, such as melodic complexity, are assumed to be independent of musical experience. A cross-cultural comparison was used to investigate the ratings of melodic complexity of western and African participants for western (Experiment 1) and African folk songs (Experiment 2). A range of melodic complexity measures was developed to discover what factors contribute to complexity. On the whole, the groups gave similar patterns of responses in both experiments. In Experiment 1, western folk songs represented a style that was familiar for both groups and the results portrayed the differences in stylistic knowledge and high predictive rate of melodic variables. In Experiment 2, African folk songs were stylistically familiar only for the African group and the results illustrated a lower predictive rate of variables and differences between the groups in rhythm and structural variables. These results suggest that the melodic complexity ratings are influenced by musical enculturation.