Implicit learning of tonality: A self-organizing approach

Category

Journal Article

Authors

Tillmann, B., Bharucha, J. J., Bigand, E.

Year

2000

Title

Implicit learning of tonality: A self-organizing approach

Journal / book / conference

Psychological Review

Abstract

Tonal music is a highly structured system that is ubiquitous in our cultural environment. We demonstrate the acquisition of implicit knowledge of tonal structure through neural self-organization resulting from mere exposure to simultaneous and sequential combinations of tones. In the process of learning, a network with fundamental neural constraints comes to internalize the essential correlational structure of tonal music. After learning, the network was run through a range of experiments from the literature. The model provides a parsimonious account of a variety of empirical findings dealing with the processing of tone, chord, and key relationships, including relatedness judgments, memory judgments, and expectancies. It also illustrates the plausibility of activation being a unifying mechanism underlying a range of cognitive tasks.

Issue

4

Volume

107

Pages

885-913

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