INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL STRUCTURE ON MUSICAL TARGET DETECTION AND RECOGNITION

The present study adapted a paradigm used in visual perception by Bied erman, Glass, and Stacy (1973) and analyzed the influence of a coheren t global context on the detection and recognition of musical target ex cerpts. Global coherence was modified by segmenting minuets into chunk s of four, two, or one bar. These chunks were either reordered (Experi ments 1, 3, 4, 5) or transposed to different keys (Experiment 2). The results indicate that target detection is influenced only by a reorgan ization on a very local level (i.e. chunks of one bar). Context incohe rence did not influence the recognition of the real targets, but rende red the rejection of wrong target excerpts (foils) more difficult. The present findings revealed only a weak effect of global context on tar get identification and only for extremely modified structures.