Learning harmony: the role of serial statistics
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
Published on: June 30, 2020
Erin McMullen Jonaitis1, Jenny R Saffran
1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Abstract:
How do listeners learn about the statistical regularities underlying musical harmony? In traditional Western music, certain chords predict the occurrence of other chords: Given a particular chord, not all chords are equally likely to follow. In Experiments 1 and 2, we investigated whether adults make use of statistical information when learning new musical structures. Listeners were exposed to a novel musical system containing phrases generated using an artificial grammar. This new system contained statistical structure quite different from Western tonal music. Our results suggest that learners take advantage of the statistical patterning of chords to acquire new musical structures, similar to learning processes previously observed for language learning.
Related Concept Videos
Introduction to Statistics
In statistics, the collection of individuals or objects under study is called population. The idea of sampling is to select a portion of the larger population...
Statistical Analysis: Overview
One of the most commonly used statistical quantifiers is the mean, which is the ratio between the sum of the numerical values of all results and the...
Harmonic Mean
Take the example of the speed of a car, which is the measure of the rate of distance traveled. If the vehicle traverses the same distance back-and-forth, its average speed equals the total distance traveled divided by the total time taken. However, if the car moves with varying speeds, then the arithmetic mean is more skewed...
Statistical Significance
Statgraphics
Introduction to Nonparametric Statistics
One of...
