Melodic expectations in 5- to 6-year-old children

Article


Politimou, N., Douglass-Kirk, P., Pearce, M., Stewart, L. and Franco, F. 2021. Melodic expectations in 5- to 6-year-old children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105020
TypeArticle
TitleMelodic expectations in 5- to 6-year-old children
AuthorsPolitimou, N., Douglass-Kirk, P., Pearce, M., Stewart, L. and Franco, F.
Abstract

It has been argued that children implicitly acquire the rules relating to the structure of music in their environment, using domain-general mechanisms such as statistical learning. Closely linked to statistical learning is the ability to form expectations about future events. Whether children as young as 5 years can make use of such internalized regularities to form expectations about the next note in a melody is still unclear. The possible effect of the home musical environment on the strength of musical expectations has also been under-explored. Using a newly developed melodic priming task that included melodies with either “expected” or “unexpected” endings according to rules of Western music theory, we tested 5-and 6-year old children (N = 46). The stimuli in this task were constructed using the Information Dynamics Of Music or IDyOM system, a probabilistic model estimating the level of “unexpectedness” of a note given the preceding context. Results showed that responses to expected versus unexpected tones were faster and more accurate indicating that children have already formed robust melodic expectations at the age of 5. Aspects of the home musical environment significantly predicted the strength of melodic expectations suggesting that implicit musical learning may be influenced by the quantity of informal exposure to the surrounding musical environment.

KeywordsAuditory perception development, Expectations, Home musical environment, Implicit musical learning, Melody, Priming
Research GroupLanguage, Learning and Cognition group
PublisherElsevier
JournalJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
ISSN0022-0965
Electronic1096-0457
Publication dates
Online30 Nov 2020
Print01 Mar 2021
Publication process dates
Deposited23 Oct 2020
Accepted02 Oct 2020
Output statusPublished
Accepted author manuscript
License
Copyright Statement

© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105020
LanguageEnglish
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