Identifying Songs from their Piano-Driven Opening Chords

It is currently believed that timbre plays a primary role in the identification of songs from very brief excerpts of music. However, its specific contribution, and those of other characteristics of the music, remain unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the contributions of timbre and chord type, voicing, and duration to participants’ ability to identify songs from their opening chords, played on the piano alone or on the piano and one other instrument. Ninety-three participants were asked to identify 20 songs from their opening chords. They were also asked to estimate the similarity between pairs of chords. We evaluated the contribution of 10 characteristics of chords to song identification rates, including brightness, pitch register, and duration, because of their high perceptual salience, and others chosen on the basis of theoretical predictions relating to auditory long-term memory. Song identification rates were associated with the chords’ brightness, familiarity and, to a lesser extent, pitch register, but not participants’ musical background. The results of the study suggest that listeners with and without musical training can identify songs from their opening chords, cued by both their timbral and non-timbral characteristics.

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Common Chord Progressions and Feelings of Remembering

Music & Science ◽

10.1177/2059204320916849 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 205920432091684

Author(s):

Ivan Jimenez ◽

Tuire Kuusi ◽

Christopher Doll

Keyword(s):

Popular Music ◽

North American ◽

Musical Training ◽

The Other ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Term Memory ◽

One Year

Although Western tonal syntax can generate a very large number of chord successions of various lengths and degrees of complexity, some types of music, from Renaissance dances to recent pop, tend to rely more heavily on the repetition of relatively simple, short harmonic patterns. Doll recently identified short chord progressions commonly found in North American and British popular music and proposed that these chord progressions can be stored in long-term memory in the form of harmonic schemata that allow listeners to hear them as stereotypical chord progressions. However, considering the challenges that many listeners face when trying to consciously grasp harmony, it seems likely that the feelings of remembering chord progressions varies from listener to listener. To investigate these potential differences, we asked 231 listeners with various levels of musical training to rate their confidence on whether or not they had previously heard six diatonic four-chord progressions. To control for the effect of extra-harmonic features, we instantiated the chord progressions in a way that resembled the piano of a famous song and controlled for participants’ familiarity with that song and whether they had played its chords. We found that ratings correlated with typicality for the two groups of participants who had played an instrument for at least one year and to a lesser extent for the other participants. Additionally, all our players thought of specific songs more often and mentioned songs that better matched the stimuli in harmonic terms. What we did not find, however, was any effect associated to how long participants had played an instrument or the type of the instrument they had played. Our research supports the notion that both musical training and extra-harmonic features affect listeners’ feelings of remembering chord progressions.

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What helps jazz musicians name tunes from harmony? The relationship between work with harmony and the ability to identify well-known jazz standards from chord progressions

Psychology of Music ◽

10.1177/0305735618793005 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 215-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ivan Jimenez ◽

Tuire Kuusi

Keyword(s):

Musical Training ◽

Formal Training ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Strongly Correlated ◽

Term Memory ◽

The Relationship

Research has shown that musical training is associated with a greater ability to aurally connect chord progressions to specific pieces of music. However, it is unclear what specific aspects of musical training contribute to that ability. The present study investigated the effects of various aspects of professional and amateur jazz musicians’ formal training and work with harmony on their ability to identify well-known jazz standards from chord progressions. For participants who were able to identify songs from commercial recordings in this experiment, general long-term involvement with activities believed to increase awareness of harmony, such as playing a harmonic instrument, playing chords by ear, and transcribing harmonic progressions was often not enough to enable them to identify songs from their chord progressions alone. Additionally, the ability to identify songs from chord progressions was most strongly correlated with having played and being able to write out the chord labels of the target pieces from long-term memory. Implications of these and other results of this experiment for our understanding of jazz musicians’ processing and memory of harmonic information are discussed.

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Pre-existing long-term memory facilitates the formation of visual short-term memory

10.31234/osf.io/gm6u2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Weizhen Xie ◽

Weiwei Zhang

Keyword(s):

Task Performance ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Neural Data ◽

Visual Short Term Memory ◽

Open Questions ◽

Theoretical Predictions

The current chapter aims to solidify converging observations in the literature concerning the contribution of pre-existing LTM to the formation of VSTM. Our approach primarily focuses on identifying conditions under which pre-existing LTM can facilitate VSTM (Xie & Zhang, 2017c), instead of the traditional focus on whether or not pre-existing LTM affects VSTM task performance (e.g., Brady, Störmer, & Alvarez, 2016; Quirk, Adam, & Vogel, 2020). This approach could provide a novel context for the development of theories about VSTM, LTM, and their interactions. Here, we will begin with some theoretical predictions of the roles of pre-existing LTM in VSTM formation. Next, we will summarize converging evidence from behavioral and neural data in support of some of these predictions. Finally, we will discuss mechanisms underlying these empirical observations and propose some open questions for future investigations.

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Conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) supports core claims of Christiansen and Chater

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x15000928 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

Author(s):

Mary C. Potter

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Visual Presentation ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Use Of Knowledge

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.

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Comparison of Auditory, Language, Memory, and Attention Abilities in Children With and Without Listening Difficulties

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2020_aja-20-00018 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 710-727

Author(s):

Beula M. Magimairaj ◽

Naveen K. Nagaraj ◽

Alexander V. Sergeev ◽

Natalie J. Benafield

Keyword(s):

Auditory Processing ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Group Differences ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Short Term ◽

Significant Group ◽

Term Memory ◽

Memory And Attention ◽

Speed And Accuracy

Objectives School-age children with and without parent-reported listening difficulties (LiD) were compared on auditory processing, language, memory, and attention abilities. The objective was to extend what is known so far in the literature about children with LiD by using multiple measures and selective novel measures across the above areas. Design Twenty-six children who were reported by their parents as having LiD and 26 age-matched typically developing children completed clinical tests of auditory processing and multiple measures of language, attention, and memory. All children had normal-range pure-tone hearing thresholds bilaterally. Group differences were examined. Results In addition to significantly poorer speech-perception-in-noise scores, children with LiD had reduced speed and accuracy of word retrieval from long-term memory, poorer short-term memory, sentence recall, and inferencing ability. Statistically significant group differences were of moderate effect size; however, standard test scores of children with LiD were not clinically poor. No statistically significant group differences were observed in attention, working memory capacity, vocabulary, and nonverbal IQ. Conclusions Mild signal-to-noise ratio loss, as reflected by the group mean of children with LiD, supported the children's functional listening problems. In addition, children's relative weakness in select areas of language performance, short-term memory, and long-term memory lexical retrieval speed and accuracy added to previous research on evidence-based areas that need to be evaluated in children with LiD who almost always have heterogenous profiles. Importantly, the functional difficulties faced by children with LiD in relation to their test results indicated, to some extent, that commonly used assessments may not be adequately capturing the children's listening challenges. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12808607

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Retrieval from Memory or Procedural Strategies for Addition Problems

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000036 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 35-39 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Muriel Fanget ◽

Catherine Thevenot ◽

Caroline Castel ◽

Michel Fayol

Keyword(s):

Reaction Times ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Verbal Reports ◽

Term Memory ◽

Simple Addition ◽

Memory Traces ◽

Addition Problem ◽

Retrieval From Memory ◽

Calculation Procedures

In this study, we used a paradigm recently developed ( Thevenot, Fanget, & Fayol, 2007 ) to determine whether 10-year-old children solve simple addition problems by retrieval of the answer from long-term memory or by calculation procedures. Our paradigm is unique in that it does not rely on reaction times or verbal reports, which are known to potentially bias the results, especially in children. Rather, it takes advantage of the fact that calculation procedures degrade the memory traces of the operands, so that it is more difficult to recognize them when they have been involved in the solution of an addition problem by calculation rather than by retrieval. The present study sharpens the current conclusions in the literature and shows that, when the sum of addition problems is up to 10, children mainly use retrieval, but when it is greater than 10, they mainly use calculation procedures.

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The Acute Effect of Alcohol on Various Memory Processes

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000038 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 249-252 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Márk Molnár ◽

Roland Boha ◽

Balázs Czigler ◽

Zsófia Anna Gaál

Keyword(s):

Low Dose ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Acute Effect ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Term Memory ◽

Memory Processes ◽

Different Types ◽

The Brain ◽

Legal Consequences

This review surveys relevant and recent data of the pertinent literature regarding the acute effect of alcohol on various kinds of memory processes with special emphasis on working memory. The characteristics of different types of long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) processes are summarized with an attempt to relate these to various structures in the brain. LTM is typically impaired by chronic alcohol intake but according to some data a single dose of ethanol may have long lasting effects if administered at a critically important age. The most commonly seen deleterious acute effect of alcohol to STM appears following large doses of ethanol in conditions of “binge drinking” causing the “blackout” phenomenon. However, with the application of various techniques and well-structured behavioral paradigms it is possible to detect, albeit occasionally, subtle changes of cognitive processes even as a result of a low dose of alcohol. These data may be important for the consideration of legal consequences of low-dose ethanol intake in conditions such as driving, etc.

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