Vocal Melody: Developmental perspectives on perception and memory

目前的研究是关于音乐和言语中的声乐旋律，特别是它对感知和记忆的影响。虽然人声是最古老、使用最广泛的乐器，但在音乐认知的研究中却很少用到人声。然而，我们最近发现，与用乐器演奏的旋律相比，用音节“la”演唱的旋律对成年人的记忆更好。提出的研究的一个重要目标是确定声音优势的因素以及这种优势在不同年龄和背景下的普遍性。我们将确定经验丰富的音乐家是否具有乐器和声乐方面的优势。由于自闭症患者对声音的大脑和行为反应减弱，声音的呈现可能对旋律的记忆没有影响或不利影响。与年龄相关的声音显著性变化可能会产生声乐和器乐表演的不同结果。我们已经开发出适合于婴儿、学龄前儿童、学龄儿童和特殊人群的成人旋律记忆任务的适应性。我们证明，成年人在用声音而不是乐器演奏时能更好地记住旋律，但其他人对单独的声音的音高感知不如乐器演奏的精确。我们将记录与年龄相关的对熟悉旋律的音调偏差的检测变化，这些旋律是用文字唱的，是用“la”唱的，或者是用乐器演奏的。言语的干扰效应在年轻时可能更大。

The present research is concerned with vocal melody in music and speech, especially its effect on perception and memory. Although the voice is the oldest and most widely used musical instrument, it is rarely used in studies of music cognition. However, we recently found that adults remembered melodies better when sung to the syllable "la" than when presented instrumentally. An important goal of the proposed research is to ascertain the factors that underlie the vocal advantage and the generality of this advantage across age and background. We will determine whether experienced musicians have instrument-specific as well as vocal advantages. Because of autistic individuals' diminished brain and behavioral responses to voices, vocal presentation may have no consequences or adverse consequences on memory for melodies. Age-related changes in the salience of the voice may generate differential consequences of vocal and instrumental presentation. We have developed suitable adaptations of the adult memory-for-melody task for use with infants, preschoolers, school-age children, and special populations. We demonstrated that adults remember melodies better when presented vocally rather than instrumentally, but others demonstrated less precise pitch perception for isolated vocal tones than for instrumental tones. We will document age-related changes in the detection of pitch deviations in familiar melodies sung with words, sung to"la" or presented instrumentally. Interfering effects of words are likely to be greater at younger ages.