Incidentally acquiring pitch-label associations with a musical contingency learning task
Category
Journal Article
Authors
Iorio, C., Bigand, E., Schmidt, J. R.
Year
2024
Title
Incidentally acquiring pitch-label associations with a musical contingency learning task
Journal / book / conference
Collabra: Psychology
Abstract
Incidental learning occurs rather rapidly and effortlessly in a range of different domains, such as early language acquisition, motor learning, and a wide range of more arbitrary laboratory tasks. The present report explores the efficacy of an incidental learning task in the acquisition of pitch-label associations, that is, the ability to identify and name musical notes by ear. In experiment 1, 2 and 3 participants were asked to respond to the target (a note name) while ignoring the cues (either a tone or, in one experiment, a tone with a note position). In a pretest and posttest, we further analyzed their ability to guess the name of the tone in a tone naming task. We also explored the role of intentionality in acquiring and remembering pitch-label associations, but there were only small suggestive trends for slightly better performance for a group instructed to try to learn the contingencies compared to a purely incidental learning group (i.e., with no instructions about the contingencies), suggesting that learning is at least primarily incidental. Our research opens up new venues for the investigations of incidental learning related to the acquisition of musical features useful to performance (how to play).
Volume
10
Pages
Article 118806
Keywords
pitch identification, contingency learning, music learning, instruction, pitch