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Time course of chord priming.
1Department of Psychology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.
Perception & Psychophysics
|January 1, 1992
Summary
Chord priming, where musical chords influence subsequent chord perception, occurs rapidly, even with brief 50-millisecond prime durations. This priming effect persists over extended intervals and is not dependent on sensory memory, suggesting associative activation.
Area of Science:
- Music cognition
- Auditory perception
- Cognitive psychology
Background:
- Chord priming demonstrates how musical context influences auditory processing.
- Understanding the temporal dynamics of chord priming is crucial for cognitive models of music perception.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the time course of chord priming.
- To determine the minimum prime duration and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) for priming.
- To differentiate between sensory memory and associative activation in maintaining priming effects.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments were conducted varying prime duration and SOA.
- Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) ranged from 50 to 2,500 milliseconds.
- A noise mask was introduced after the prime to disrupt sensory memory.
Main Results:
- Priming was observed at the shortest tested SOA and prime duration (50 msec).
- Priming effects remained robust even at the longest SOA (2,500 msec) without diminishing magnitude.
- An interpolated noise mask did not abolish the priming effect.
Conclusions:
- Chord priming is a rapid cognitive process.
- The persistence of priming suggests it relies on associative activation rather than transient sensory memory.
- Findings support associative models of musical memory and perception.