Influence of melodic “context” on recognition memory for pitch

Abstract

Seven male and seven female subjects were ask to make pitch recognition after a retention interval, during which a six tone-melody was interpolated. Two interpolated melody conditions were used : “High-Tonality melodies” and “Low-Tonality melodies”. It was found that in the conditions of “High-Tonality melodies”, correct recognition rates were superior for “the scale tones” at the pitch positions Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La relative to each of the interpolated melodies. Relationship between short-term memory for pitch and melody recognition was discussed with our hypothesis that we have an internal modal scale schema. Moreover, a few predicted figures of response were discussed with reference to our data. © 1985, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.