CONTEXT EFFECTS ON MELODY RECOGNITION - A DYNAMIC INTERPRETATION

The aim of the present study was to investigate how context effects, p reviously observed in a perceptual task (Bigand, 1993, in press), infl uence melody recognition. Three factors were manipulated: key context, rhythm context, and musical expertise. The key context effect was ach ieved by making a few small changes in the pitches of the melodies, an d the rhythmic context effect was achieved either by shifting the rhyt hmic structure or altering the duration of the tones. Participants wer e asked to evaluate the percentage of tones that had been changed from a standard to a comparison melody. The data support the dynamic theor y of attention developed by Jones, (1976), Jones and Boltz (1989), and Jones and Yee (1993). The perception and memorization of melodies are dynamic, context-specific activities: irrespective of musical experti se, varying the strength of tonal and rhythmic accents in a melody aff ects the way listeners' attention is guided through time, which in tur n alters the overall dynamic shape of the melody and renders its recog nition difficult.