Children and adults, with or without music training, exhibit better memory for vocal melodies (without lyrics) than for instrumental melodies (Weiss, Schellenberg, Trehub, & Dawber, 2015; Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012; Weiss, Trehub, Schellenberg, & Habashi, 2016; Weiss, Vanzella, Schellenberg, & Trehub, 2015). In the present study, we compared adults’ memory for vocal and instrumental melodies, as before, but with two additional singers, one female (same pitch level as the original female) and one male (7 semitones lower). In an exposure phase, 90 participants ( M = 4.1 years training, SD = 3.9) rated their liking of 24 melodies—6 each in voice, piano, banjo, and marimba. After a short break, they heard the same melodies plus 24 timbre-matched foils (6 per timbre) and rated their recognition of each melody. Recognition was better for vocal melodies than for melodies in every other timbre, replicating previous findings. Importantly, the memory advantage was comparable across voices, despite the fact that liking ratings for vocal melodies differed by singer. Our results provide support for the notion that the vocal advantage in memory for melodies is independent of the idiosyncrasies of specific singers or of vocal attractiveness, arising instead from enhanced processing of a biologically significant timbre.

the objective of this special issue of Music Perception , which includes contributions from researchers based in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the US, is to present the best new research on associations between music training and nonmusical abilities. Scholarly interest in associations between music training and nonmusical cognitive functioning has sparked much research over the past 15–20 years. The study of how far associations between music training and cognitive abilities extend, and whether such associations are more likely for some domains of cognition than for others, has theoretical relevance for issues of transfer, modularity, and plasticity. Unlike most other areas of scientific inquiry, there is parallel interest on the part of the public, the media, and educators who want to know if nonmusical intellectual and academic benefits are a welcome by-product of sending children to music lessons. Indeed, some educators and arts advocates justify music training in schools precisely because of these presumed and desired nonmusical associations.

musically trained and untrained participants were administered tests of emotional intelligence and IQ. As in previous research, trained participants scored higher than untrained participants on the IQ Composite score and on its Verbal and Nonverbal subtests. The advantage for the trained group on the Composite score and on the Nonverbal subtest was evident even when gender, parents' education, family income, and first language were held constant. The groups performed similarly, however, on the test of emotional intelligence, and scores on the IQ test were only weakly correlated with scores on the emotional intelligence test. The results imply that (1) associations between music lessons and nonmusical abilities are limited to intellectual abilities, and/or (2) associations between music lessons and emotional intelligence are not evident on visual- and/or text-based tests of emotional intelligence such as the one used here.

STOESZ, JAKOBSON, KILGOUR, AND LEWYCKY (2007) and Jakobson, Lewycky,Kilgour, and Stoesz (2008) examined whether music training is associated with nonmusical abilities. They concluded that their results provided evidence of "specific" associations between music training and local-processing abilities (Stoesz et al., 2007), and between music training and memory for verbal and visual stimuli (Jakobson et al., 2008). Closer inspection of their methods, consideration of the available literature, and a reanalysis of previous data reveal that these conclusions are debatable.Moreover, the causal direction of the observed associations could go either or both ways.

INTRINSIC PITCH PROCESSING LIMITATIONS OF cochlear implants constrain the perception of music, particularly melodies. We tested child implant users' ability to recognize music on the basis of incidental exposure.Using a closed-set task, prelingually deaf children with implants and hearing children were required to identify three renditions of the theme music from their favorite TV programs: a flute rendition of the main (sung) melody, a full instrumental version without lyrics, and the original music. Although child implant users were less accurate than hearing children, they successfully identified all versions of songs at above-chance levels——a finding that contradicts widespread claims of child and adult implant users' difficulties with melody identification.We attribute their success primarily to timing cues that match those of the original music.

ABSOLUTE PITCH (AP) IS THE ABILITY TO IDENTIFY OR produce a musical note in isolation. As traditionally defined, AP requires accurate pitch memory as well as knowledge of note names. The incidence of AP is higher in Asia than it is in North America.We used a task with no naming requirements to examine pitch memory among Canadian 9- to 12-year-olds of Asian (Chinese) or non-Asian (European) heritage. On each trial, children heard two versions of a 5-s excerpt from a familiar recording, one of which was shifted upward or downward in pitch. They were asked to identify the excerpt at the original pitch. The groups performed comparably, and knowledge of a tone language did not affect performance. Nonetheless, Asians performed better on a test of academic achievement. These results provide no support for the contribution of genetics or tone-language use to cross-cultural differences in pitch memory.

We examined effects of tempo and mode on spatial ability, arousal, and mood. A Mozart sonata was performed by a skilled pianist and recorded as a MIDI file. The file was edited to produce four versions that varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Participants listened to a single version and completed measures of spatial ability, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was superior after listening to music at a fast rather than a slow tempo, and when the music was presented in major rather than minor mode. Tempo manipulations affected arousal but not mood, whereas mode manipulations affected mood but not arousal. Changes in arousal and mood paralleled variation on the spatial task. The findings are consistent with the view that the "Mozart effect" is a consequence of changes in arousal and mood.

Listeners were tested on their ability to discriminate "standard" and "comparison" pure-tone musical intervals that differed in size by 20 cents (1/ 5 of an equal-tempered semitone). Some of the intervals were prototypic, equal-tempered perfect fifths (exactly 7 semitones, or 700 cents). Others were mistuned to various degrees (660, 680, 720, or 740 cents). The intervals were melodic (sequential) in Experiments 1 and 2 and harmonic (simultaneous) in Experiment 3. Performance was neither enhanced nor impaired in comparisons that included the prototype. In other words, no "perceptual magnet" or "perceptual anchor" effects were observed. Nonetheless, performance was markedly asymmetric. Regardless of listeners' musical expertise, discrimination was superior when the standard interval was more accurately tuned than the comparison interval (e.g., 700- cent standard, 680-cent comparison), compared with when the comparison was more accurately tuned than the standard (e.g., 680-cent standard, 700-cent comparison).

We examined effects of pitch and rhythm on the perceived emotional content of short melodies. We initially developed exemplars of melodies that were judged consistently to convey a single emotional category: happy, sad, or scary. We subsequently manipulated the pitch and rhythm parameters to derive three altered versions of each exemplar: a pitch-only version (pitch differences intact but all tones of equal duration), a rhythmonly version (durational differences intact but all tones of equal pitch), and a baseline version (all tones of equal duration and pitch). Listeners rated how well each exemplar and altered version conveyed its corresponding emotion. Effects of pitch and rhythm varied across melodies. In all cases, ratings were influenced more by differences in pitch than by differences in rhythm. Whenever rhythm affected ratings, it interacted with pitch.

Results from previous investigations indicate that the implication-realization (I-R) model (Narmour, 1990) of expectancy in melody may be overspecified and more complex than necessary. Indeed, Schellenberg's (1996) revised model, with two fewer predictor variables, improved predictive accuracy compared with the original model. A reanalysis of data reported by Cuddy and Lunney (1995) provided similar results. When the principles of the I-R model were submitted to a principal- components analysis, a solution containing three orthogonal (uncorrelated) factors retained the accuracy of the model but was inferior to the revised model. A separate principal-components analysis of the predictors of the revised model yielded a two-factor solution that did not compromise the revised model's predictive power. Consequently, an even simpler model of melodic expectancy was derived. These results provide further evidence that redundancy in the I-R model can be eliminated without loss of predictive accuracy.