Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 6, Issue 2, April 1987, Pages 202-215
Brain and Cognition

Shifting ear differences in melody recognition through strategy inducement

https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-2626(87)90121-7Get rights and content

Abstract

In a previous study, the pattern of ear superiority displayed by nonmusicians in a task where dichotically presented target melodies have to be recognized among four probes was found to be correlated with subjects' descriptions of their operating modes: those who reported focusing on critical local differences in pitch tended to show right ear advantage (REA) and the others LEA. The purpose of the present study was to examine if laterality patterns can be affected by treatments designed to induce particular strategies. Treatments supposed to orient toward analytic processing, advising attention to critical notes, with (Experiment 2) or without (Experiment 1) the additional task of reporting their location, produced the expected shift toward REA. To the contrary, treatments supposed to orient toward holistic processing, advising attention to overall contour or requesting aesthetic judgments (Experiment 1), failed to produce the expected shift toward LEA. The result can be attributed either to a basic difference in susceptibility to strategic control between the different operating modes or, more simply, to ineffectiveness of the present holistically oriented treatments.

References (21)

  • A. Gates et al.

    Music perception and cerebral asymmetries

    Cortex

    (1977)
  • J. Marshall et al.

    The measure of laterality

    Neuropsychologia

    (1975)
  • I. Peretz et al.

    Modes of processing melodies and ear asymmetry in non-musicians

    Neuropsychologia

    (1980)
  • I. Peretz et al.

    Task determinants of ear differences in melody processing

    Brain and Cognition

    (1983)
  • P. Bertelson

    Lateral differences in normal man and lateralization of brain function

    International Journal of Psychology

    (1982)
  • T. Bever

    Broca and Lashley were right: Cerebral dominance is an accident of growth

  • T. Bever et al.

    Cerebral dominance in musicians and non-musicians

    Science

    (1974)
  • J. Bradshaw et al.

    The nature of hemispheric specialization in man

    The Behavioral and Brain Sciences

    (1981)
  • M. Bryden et al.

    Shortcomings of the verbal/nonverbal dichotomy: Seems to us we've heard this song before … [Commentary on Bradshaw & Nettleton, 1981.]

    Behavioral and Brain Sciences

    (1981)
  • L. Cooper

    Recent themes in visual information processing: A selected overview

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

The present study has been supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche fondamentale collective (F.R.F.C.) under Convention 2.4505.80. The first author was Aspirant of the Belgian Fonds national de la Recherche scientifique (F.N.R.S.) at the time the work was carried out.

View full text