Spatial-musical association of response codes without sound

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychoacoustics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The spatial-musical association of response codes (SMARC) links pitch height with key position.
• SMARC is often attributed to spatial coding of sound pitch.
• The role of verbal labels and automatic sound localization in SMARC is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the SMARC effect occurs without auditory stimuli.
• To determine if written pitch names alone can elicit the SMARC effect.
• To differentiate SMARC from automatic sound localization effects.

Main Methods:

• Participants (musically trained and naïve) responded to visually presented written pitch names.
• Pitch height was judged or compared to a referential pitch.
• The SMARC effect was assessed by response times to different key positions.

Main Results:

• The SMARC effect was observed in musically trained participants using written pitch names.
• Musically naïve participants also showed the SMARC effect when pitch height was comparable to a referent.
• The effect persisted even when pitch height was task-irrelevant for trained musicians.

Conclusions:

• The SMARC effect can be elicited by semantic representations of pitch, independent of sound.
• This finding excludes automatic sound localization as the sole explanation for SMARC.
• SMARC likely involves higher-level cognitive processes related to pitch meaning.