EXPECTANCIES GENERATED BY MELODIC INTERVALS - EVALUATION OF PRINCIPLES OF MELODIC IMPLICATION IN A MELODY-COMPLETION TASK

Bottom-up principles of melodic implication (Narmour, 1990) were evalu ated in a melody-completion task. One hundred subjects (50 low trainin g; 50 high training in music) were presented each of eight melodic int ervals. For each interval, the subjects were asked to compose a short melody on a piano keyboard, treating the interval provided as the firs t two notes of the melody. For each melody, the first response-the not e immediately following the initial interval-was analyzed. Multinomial log linear analyses were conducted to assess the extent to which resp onses could be predicted by Narmour's (1990, 1992) bottom-up principle s. Support was found for all of Narmour's principles, and two addition al predictors based on implied tonal structure, Responses of low-and h igh-training groups were similar.