The Effect of Melodic Context on Cross-Cultural Music Memory Steven J. Morrison, Steven M. Demorest, Vu Q. Nguyen & Erin N. Bodnar

School of Music, University of Washington

For additional information please contact the authors at sjmorris@uw.edu, demorest@uw.edu, vqn2@uw.edu, or bodnar@uw.edu.

MCCL!Laboratory for Music Cognition, Culture & Learning!

BACKGROUND Music is a highly contextualized construction adhering to a specific set of norms and conventions that vary according to the culture in which it resides.1 Prior results have shown that listeners demonstrate better memory for unfamiliar music from their own culture than from an unfamiliar culture.2,3,4,5 It is speculated that the difficulty individuals demonstrate remembering culturally unfamiliar music may be due to an inability to accurately and efficiently parse phrase boundaries that may, in turn, reflect a lack of facility with culturally specific systems and hierarchies of pitch or meter.6 Previous research has demonstrated that listeners recognize rhythmic violations7 and pitch violations8,9 in culturally familiar music more easily then in culturally unfamiliar music. The current study combines a cognitive memory task with one aspect of music, melody, to examine how melody may contribute to the broader ability to comprehend culturally unfamiliar music.

The purpose of the present study was (A) to test the hypothesis that listeners would demonstrate better memory for culturally familiar than for culturally unfamiliar music even when both music styles were presented as unaccompanied melodies performed in a familiar timbral context and (B) to determine if there was a relationship between preference and music memory.

EXPERIMENT 1 PARTICIPANTS (N = 67): Adults born in the U.S. or having lived ourtside the U.S. for 1 year or less

STIMULI: • 12 instrumental excerpts (6 Western classical and 6 Turkish classical), 25-35s • 48 memory test items (24 correct items and 24 foils), 4-6s • Correct items and foils taken from excerpts; foils taken from portions not previously heard • Excerpts and test items presented in contextualized (original ensemble recording) or

decontextualized condition (melody only with piano timbre)

PROCEDURE: • Excerpts presented in two 6-excerpt blocks grouped by culture • Preference - 7-point Likert-type scale • Memory – Following each 6-excerpt block, 24-item test for each music type indicating whether test item was heard previously • Excerpts and test items heard contextualized (n = 34) or decontextualized (n = 33)

EXPERIMENT 2 We ran a second experiment to examine whether the lack of difference between Western and Turkish contextualized memory scores reflected the difficulty of a 6+6 excerpt listening task.

PARTICIPANTS (N = 40)

STIMULI & PROCEDURE: • Same as Exp. 1 with 3 instrumental excerpts each (Western, Turkish), 25-35s • 12-item memory test for each music type (6 correct items and 6 foils), 4-6s • Excerpts and test items heard contextualized (n = 20) or decontextualized (n = 20)

CONCLUSIONS Stimulus complexity—here meaning the presence of multiple instrument timbres and complementary (harmonic, contrapuntal) lines—appeared to have a negative effect on music memory for culturally familiar music when participants were presented with a larger number of excerpts. That this effect disappeared on a reduced test form (Exp. 2) suggests that the longer test form surpassed the ability of participants to successfully retain context-rich musical information for memory purposes. In contrast, the virtually identical memory results observed between context conditions in Exp. 2 may reflect the critical role intervalic and/or rhythmic patterns may play in distinguishing cross-cultural memory responses. In other words, culturally familiar music may be more successfully remembered due more to factors relating to melodic construction than to other musical parameters.

RESULTS Participants demonstrated significant preference for Western excerpts [F(1,63) = 133.88, p < .001, partial η2 = .64]; original performances were preferred over decontextualized melodies only for Western music [F(1,63) = 4.72, p < .05] (Fig. 1a). Overall, participants reported more positive preference when Turkish excerpts were presented first [F(1,63) = 12.98, p = .001].

Memory scores significantly better for decontextualized Western melodies [F(1, 63) = 9.86, p = .003, partial η2 = .14]; no difference by music type among original performances (Fig. 1b).

There were no significant correlations between summed preference ratings for excerpt pairs (all pairwise correlations p < .001) and total memory scores for the six derived test items.

RESULTS Similar to Experiment 1, participants significantly preferred Western excerpts [F(1,36) = 29.63, p < .001, partial η2 = .45] (Fig. 2a). Again preference was greater overall when Turkish excerpts were heard first [F(1,36) = 7.30, p = .01]. Preference differences by context did not reach statistical significance.

Participants were significantly better at remembering Western test items [F(1,36) = 14.32, p = .001, partial η2 = .29] regardless of context condition (Fig. 2b). This finding suggests that results from Exp. 1 were due to difficulty with encoding a large number of complex music excerpts.

There were no significant correlations between preference for individual excerpts and total memory scores for the four derived test items.

1. Demorest, S. M., Morrison, S. J., Stambaugh, L. A., Beken, M., Richards, T. L., & Johnson, C. (2010). An fMRI investigation of the cultural specificity of music memory. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5, 282-291.

2. Demorest, S. M., Morrison, S. J., Beken, M. N., & Jungbluth, D. (2008). Lost in translation: An enculturation effect in music memory performance. Music Perception, 25, 213-223.

3. Morrison, S. J., Demorest, S. M., Aylward, E. H., Cramer, S. C., & Maravilla, K. R. (2003). fMRI investigation of cross-cultural music comprehension. NeuroImage, 20(1), 378-384.

4. Morrison, S. M., Demorest, S. M., & Stambaugh, L. A. (2008). Enculturation effects in music cognition: The role of age and music complexity. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56, 118-129.

5. Wong, P. C. M., Roy, A. K., & Margulis, E. H. (2009). Bimusicalism: The implicit dual enculturation of cognitive and affective systems. Music Perception, 27, 81-88.

6. Morrison, S. J., & Demorest, S. M. (2009). Cultural constraints on music perception and cognition in Progress in Brain Research, Vol 178, 67-77.

7. Hannon, E. E., & Trehub, S. E. (2005). Metrical categories in infancy and adulthood. Psychological Science, 16(1), 48-55.

8. Lynch, M. P., & Eilers, R. E. (1991). Children’s perception of native and nonnative musical scales. Music Perception, 9, 121-131.

9. Lynch, M. P., Eilers, R. E., Oller, K. D., Urbano, R. C., & Wilson, P. (1991). Influences of accultruation and musical sophistication on perception of musical interval patterns. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 17, 967-975.

(a) (b) Figure 1. Mean preference ratings (a) and d prime memory scores (b) by context condition and music type for 6+6 excerpt listening (error bars show standard deviation).

(a) (b) Figure 2. Mean preference ratings (a) and d prime memory scores (b) by context condition and music type for 3+3 excerpt listening (error bars show standard deviation).

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