Perceptual processes and emotional responses of music: cross-cultural investigation and cognitive modeling

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This research project investigated the perceptual processes and emotional responses of music. We especially focused on the tonal organization processes of music, and executed several experimental studies on that processes as follows.Pitch set appears to serve as a primary cue for key identification of a melody. Previous studies have proposed additional sequence properties in a melody (e.g., augmented fourth, the diminished fifth, perfect fifth and so on) that may function as further cues, however, the role of the latter in key identification is controversial. One of our experimental studies was designed to investigate what kinds of sequence properties, i.e., local properties, if any, function as reliable cues for key identification. Listeners were asked to identify keys for 450 melodies that consisted of the same pitch set but differed in sequential constraints. Using multiple discriminant analyses, we evaluated relative contributions of as many kinds of local sequence properties as possible (e.g., single intervals, single intervals in each sequential position, single pitch classes in each sequential position, and so on). The results showed that, except for the pitch class of the final tone, for which interpretation should be taken cautiously, none of local sequence properties examined contributed significantly to key identification. This finding suggests that, contrary to prior findings, key identification is derived from unidentified properties other than the specific sequence properties.