Dichotic recognition of musical canons: Effects of leading ear and time lag between ears

Abstract

A musical canon consists of two melodic lines with the second part copying the first exactly after some time delay. Right-handed adults listened to canons presented dichotically at time delays between the ears of 2, 4, and 8 sec. Presentation rate varied from 1.0 to 4.4 notes/sec in one part. Different groups of subjects heard the canons with the left or the right ear leading. The subject's task was to tell whether a given stimulus was a canon or not. Control stimuli were noncanons by the same composer. Musically experienced subjects performed better at the task than inexperienced subjects. Short time lags were easier than long, and the effect of lag was more pronounced with the right ear leading. In the light of previous evidence of functional ear asymmetry in music perception, these results suggest that whenever possible subjects use a strategy of selecting out small chunks of the lead-ear melody for short-term memory storage and later comparison with the trailing melody. The auditory system processing information from the right ear is especially good at focusing on small chunks. But this strategy is particularly vulnerable to time lag; hence the interaction of lead ear and time lag. © 1978 Psychonomic Society, Inc.