A study on interference effect in the recognition of musical pitch

在一个使用音高命名任务和音节命名任务的实验中，证明了听觉模拟的Stroop效应。在每次试验中，一个固定音高为C的参考钢琴音之后是一个由男歌手或女歌手演唱的声乐测试音。所唱音符的音高选自C大调全音阶，与所发音节或一致或不一致。有绝对音高的参与者和没有绝对音高的参与者用声音说出音高（音高任务）或重复音节（音节任务）。在另一系列实验中，参与者通过按音乐键盘上相应的键来识别歌曲中的音高或音节。正如视觉Stroop效应所预期的那样，音节名不一致干扰了音高识别，导致比一致条件下更多的错误和更长的响应时间。更有趣的是，拥有绝对音高的参与者在音节任务中表现出相反的效果；不一致的音高干扰了音节阴影或按键。相比之下，没有绝对音高的参与者没有这种干扰。这个结果与绝对音高拥有者已经在音高和它的音符名之间形成了强烈而强制性的联系的假设是一致的。

An auditory analogue of the Stroop effect was demonstrated in an experiment in which a musical-pitch naming task and a syllable-naming task were used. In each trial, a reference piano tone with fixed pitch of C was followed by a vocal test tone sung by a male or female singer. Pitch of the sung note was selected from the C major-diatonic scale and was either congruent or incongruent with the pronounced syllable. Participants with absolute pitch and those without absolute pitch named vocally the musical pitch (pitch task) or repeated the syllable (syllable task). In another series of experiments, participants identified the musical pitch or the syllable in the sung voice by pressing a corresponding key on the musical keyboard. As expected from the visual Stroop effect, the incongruent syllable name interfered with pitch identification, resulting in more errors and longer response times compared with the congruent condition. More interestingly, participants with absolute pitch showed the reverse effect in the syllable task ; the incongruent pitch interfered with syllable shadowing or keypressing. In contrast, participants with no absolute pitch showed no such interference. This result is consistent with the assumption that absolute-pitch possessors have developed strong and mandatory associations between pitch and its note name.