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Articulation posture influences pitch during singing imagery
1Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Holländische Straße 36-38, 34127, Kassel, Germany. anita.koerner@uni-kassel.de.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|May 23, 2023
Summary
Singing pitch is influenced by mouth shape, even when only imagining singing. Retracting lips for an "ee" sound raised imagined pitch compared to protruding lips for an "oh" sound, linking language and music.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Music Cognition
- Psychology
Background:
- Facial muscle activity is crucial for both speech articulation and singing.
- Mouth shape influences vowel perception in speech and correlates with pitch in singing.
- Embodied cognition theories suggest bodily states impact mental experiences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if mouth posture causally affects perceived pitch during singing imagery.
- To test the hypothesis that non-vocalized mouth shapes influence mental pitch judgments.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments involving 160 participants were conducted.
- Participants adopted mouth postures mimicking /i/ (retracted lips) or /o/ (protruded lips).
- Participants mentally "sang" songs and then rated the pitch of their mental rendition.
Main Results:
- The /i/ mouth posture resulted in higher perceived pitch during mental singing compared to the /o/ posture.
- This effect occurred without overt vocalization, supporting the role of embodied states.
Conclusions:
- Bodily states, specifically mouth posture, can shape subjective experiences like musical pitch during mental imagery.
- This research extends embodied music cognition and highlights a novel connection between language and music processing.
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