Search results for "Western music"

Key processing precedes emotional categorization of Western music.

2005

To investigate whether key processing precedes the appraisal of valence in music, participants listened to pairs of clips of same or different valence, played either in the same key or one semitone apart. They judged whether the second clip expressed the same emotion as the first one. Our predictions were confirmed: the response times obtained were shorter when both clips were played in the same key than when they were played one semitone apart.

'Between two worlds' : comparisons and explorations in oriental and western music cultures

2008

Newborn infants' auditory system is sensitive to Western music chord categories

2013

Neural encoding of abstract rules in the audition of newborn infants has been recently demonstrated in several studies using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the present study the neural encoding of Western music chords was investigated in newborn infants. Using ERPs, we examined whether the categorizations of major vs. minor and consonance vs. dissonance are present at the level of the change-related mismatch response (MMR). Using an oddball paradigm, root minor, dissonant and inverted major chords were presented in a context of consonant root major chords. The chords were transposed to several different frequency levels, so that the deviant chords did not include a physically deviant f…

Musical training facilitates the neural discrimination of major versus minor chords in 13-year-old children

2012

Music practice since childhood affects the development of hearing skills. An important classification in Western music is the chords’ major-minor dichotomy. Its preattentive auditory discrimination was studied here using a mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm in 13-year-olds with active hobbies, music-related (music group) or other (control group). In a context of root major chords, root minor chords and inverted major chords were presented infrequently. The interval structure of inverted majors differs more from root majors than the interval structure of root minors. However, the identity of the chords is the same in inverted and root majors (major), but different in root minors. The deviant…