tonal violations interact with lexical processing: evidence from cross-modal priming
DESCRIPTION
Tonal Violations Interact with Lexical Processing: Evidence from Cross-modal Priming Meagan E. Curtis 1 and Jamshed J. Bharucha 2 1 Dept. of Psych. & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2 Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts. INTRODUCTION. RESULTS. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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
INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION EXPERIMENT 1: METHODSEXPERIMENT 1: METHODS
RESULTSRESULTS
CONCLUSIONSCONCLUSIONS
SubjectsTwenty-four volunteers from the Dartmouthcommunity
Behavioral taskDecide as quickly and accurately as possiblewhether the visual stimulus is a word or a nonword
Follow UpIn experiment 1, participants were not required to attend to the auditory stimuli. Theywere instructed to concentrate on the visualtask. In experiment 2, participants wererequired 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 wouldbe influenced by the visual stimuli, just as theword discriminations were influenced by the auditory stimuli in experiment 1.
pagic+
Random tones(500 ms)
FixationContext chord(3000 ms)
Word/ NonwordTarget chord (1000 ms)
Trial
Word Discrimination Task
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Expected Unexpected
Auditory Stimulus
Word
Nonword
F(1,23)=5.1, p=.03
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 willdraw 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.
Target Chord
Organ
Organ
C G
C F#
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Context TargetChord Chord
ExpectedTarget
UnexpectedTarget
MUSICAL EXPECTANCYMUSICAL EXPECTANCY
The goal of our investigations was to determinewhether musical expectancy violations can beinformative across modalities, alerting theperceptual systems to anticipate other lowprobability stimuli.
Expectancy can be easily modulated usingmusical 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.
Participants heard chord progressions in which the target chord either adhered to or violated the established tonality. A visual discrimination taskwas presented simultaneously with the targetchord. The visual stimuli consisted of familiar and novel stimuli: words and nonwords.
STIMULISTIMULI
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.
EXPERIMENT 2: METHODSEXPERIMENT 2: METHODS
SubjectsTen volunteers from the DartmouthCommunity
Participation CriterionAll subjects were given a chord discrimination pretest. Only those who could perform the tasksignificantly above the level of chance couldparticipate.
Behavioral tasksDecide as quickly and accurately as possiblewhether the visual stimulus is a word or a nonword. Then decide whether the context chordand the target chord are related or unrelated.
chord?
narse
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FixationContext chord(3000 ms)
Word/ NonwordTarget chord(1000 ms maximum)
Trial
Related/ Unrelated(Displayed until response occurs)
Random tones(500 ms)
Time
Time
Note: The same stimuli were used in experiments 1 and 2
Word Discrimination Task
740
760780
800
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Expected Unexpected
Auditory Stimulus
Word
Nonword
RESULTSRESULTS
Target Chord F(1,9)=5.9, p=.04
Chord Discrimination Task
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Expected Unexpected
Auditory Stimulus
Word
Nonword
Target Chord F(1,9)=6.5, p=.03
The results of experiment 1 were replicated. Additionally, the error rates to the chorddiscrimination task reveal a similar effect; words influenced participants to judge chords as being related, whereas nonwordsinfluenced them to judge chords as beingunrelated.
Musical expectancy and lexical familiarityappear to be processed in a multi-modal manner.
Low probability stimuli can be informativeacross modalities, alerting the perceptual systems to prepare for other low probability stimuli, whereas high probability stimuli alert the perceptual systems to anticipate other highprobability stimuli.