We used implicit and explicit tasks to measure knowledge of Western harmony in musically trained and untrained Canadian children. Younger children were 6–7 years of age; older children were 10–11. On each trial, participants heard a sequence of five piano chords. The first four chords established a major-key context. The final chord was the standard, expected tonic of the context or one of two deviant endings: the highly unexpected flat supertonic or the moderately unexpected subdominant. In the implicit task, children identified the timbre of the final chord (guitar or piano) as quickly as possible. Response times were faster for the tonic ending than for either deviant ending, but the magnitude of the priming effect was similar for the two deviants, and the effect did not vary as a function of age or music training. In the explicit task, children rated how good each chord sequence sounded. Ratings were highest for sequences with the tonic ending, intermediate for the subdominant, and lowest for the flat supertonic. Moreover, the difference between the tonic and deviant sequences was larger for older children with music training. Thus, the explicit task provided a more nuanced picture of musical knowledge than did the implicit task.
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April 2022
Research Article|
April 01 2022
Measuring Children’s Harmonic Knowledge with Implicit and Explicit Tests
Kathleen A. Corrigall,
MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada
Katie Corrigall, Department of Psychology, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5J 4S2. E-mail: corrigallk@macewan.ca
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Barbara Tillmann,
Barbara Tillmann
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, France
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E. Glenn Schellenberg
E. Glenn Schellenberg
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal
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Katie Corrigall, Department of Psychology, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5J 4S2. E-mail: corrigallk@macewan.ca
Music Perception (2022) 39 (4): 361–370.
Article history
Received:
December 03 2020
Accepted:
January 14 2022
Citation
Kathleen A. Corrigall, Barbara Tillmann, E. Glenn Schellenberg; Measuring Children’s Harmonic Knowledge with Implicit and Explicit Tests. Music Perception 1 April 2022; 39 (4): 361–370. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2022.39.4.361
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