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