Jon Prince

Cognitive biases in information processing of valenced stimuli are a major contributor to the phenomenology of mood disorders. However, current screening tools for mood disorders rely on self-report questionnaires, which include uncomfortably invasive questions and are confounded by socially desirable responding. Taken together, assessing information processing biases may be a promising proxy to screen non-invasively for mood disorders. Here, we report data of 60 participants that performed a continuous statistical learning task in which respondents were asked to predict the next event in a sequence of musical chords. An underlying transitional probability matrix governed the chord sequences. Each participant performed both a positive- and negative-valence block of this task, where blocks differed in the precise musical chords used. A pilot experiment established that the sequences from both blocks evoked their intended perceived valence. Furthermore, cognitive assessment (Raven’s advanced matrices) as well as mood scores (DASS-21) were collected. Bayesian mixed effects models revealed that participants were able to extract the underlying transitional probabilities and that higher cognitive ability predicted higher performance. Furthermore, there was strong evidence that the depression, anxiety, and stress subscales all predicted learning trajectories, and interacted with stimulus valence. Thus, the present results show that information processing differences in a musical context are consistent with the phenomenology of mood disorders. The present study is one step towards a non-invasive musical tool to screen for mood disorders.

Purpose Previous perceptual work on Western tonal hierarchies has not investigated the subtleties inherent in theoretical descriptions of the minor key. This study was designed to rigorously test cognitive representations of the three forms of the minor scale (natural, harmonic, and melodic), and the effects of musical context type (chordal vs. scalar) thereon. It was predicted that participants would be able to differentiate between the three minor types, and furthermore that chord contexts might facilitate cognitive representations of the harmonic minor, whereas scale contexts might facilitate representations of the melodic minor. Methods Sixteen musician participants were presented with a musical context (chordal or scalar) that established one of the three forms of the minor tonal hierarchy. Next, participants rated how well a probe tone (consisting of one of the 12 chromatic pitches) fit with the preceding context, on a Likert scale of 1 to 7. Results Most importantly, and as expected, participants‘ ratings distinguished between the three minor types, producing unique probe tone profiles corresponding closely to theoretical descriptions of the natural, harmonic, and melodic minor. Contrary to predictions regarding the effect of context, however, the minor tonal profiles did not differ across chordal and scalar contexts. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that musically trained listeners‘ cognitive representations of minor tonalities are sensitive to the differences among the three minor types. This finding helps fill an obvious, if neglected, gap in the music cognition literature. Research Implications Previous research into cognitive representations of the minor key has often assumed that listeners perceive all minor forms similarly, and has neglected to distinguish between the three types. This study shows that instead, musically trained listeners clearly process the natural, harmonic, and melodic minor distinctly. Acknowledgement of Research Funding This research was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant awarded to Dr. Mark Schmuckler.

Tonality and meter are uniquely suited to investigate issues of internal representations of stimulus structure. Whether these dimensions are independent or interactive is important for applying this research to general cognition, and consists of two questions. First, while attending to one dimension, can listeners ignore irrelevant variation in other dimension? Second, does the structural organization of one dimension (e.g., tonailty) affect that of the other (e.g., meter)?

The perceived similarity of cross-modally presented contours was investigated with two experiments. The combination of surface correlation and Fourier analysis techniques allows quantitative descriptions of both global and local contour information. Experiment 1 investigated auditory–visual similarity by presenting a tonal melody followed by a line drawing and asking participants to rate the similarity between the two. Both stimuli were coded as integer series representing pitch or vertical height, respectively. Ratings were predicted by the surface correlation between the melody and the drawing (the correlation of the two integer series). Experiment 2 reversed the order of presentation by presenting the drawing first, followed by the melody. Surface correlation again predicted similarity ratings, in addition to amplitude and phase components derived from a Fourier analysis model. These results validate the Fourier analysis model of contour cross-modally, particularly when participants must attend to the global character of visual and auditory contours.