Name that tune: Identifying popular recordings from brief excerpts

We tested listeners' ability to identify brief excerpts from popular record ings. Listeners were required to match 200- or 100-msec excerpts with the s ong titles and artists. Performance was well above chance levels for 200-ms ec excerpts and poorer but still better than chance for 100-msec excerpts. Performance fell to chance levels when dynamic (time-varying) information w as disrupted by playing the 100-msec excerpts backward and when high-freque ncy information was omitted from the 100-msec excerpts; performance was una ffected by the removal of low-frequency information. In sum, successful ide ntification required the presence of dynamic, high-frequency spectral infor mation.