Identification of Speeded and Slowed Familiar Melodies by Younger, Middle-Aged, and Older Musicians and Nonmusicians

There is a range of tempos within which listeners can identify familiar tunes (around 0.8 to 6.0 notes/s). Faster and slower tunes are difficult to identify. The authors assessed fast and slow melody-identification thresholds for 80 listeners ages 17-79 years with expertise varying from musically un...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 1998-09, Vol.13 (3), p.462-471
Main Authors: Andrews, Melinda W, Dowling, W. Jay, Bartlett, James C, Halpern, Andrea R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Differences
Aged
Aging
Aging - psychology
Attention
Auditory Perception
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Developmental psychology
Distortion
Factors
Familiarity
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Identification
Intellectual and cognitive abilities
Male
Melodies
Memory
Mental Recall
Middle Aged
Music
Music Perception
Musicians
Musicians & conductors
Practice (Psychology)
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Speed
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Summary:There is a range of tempos within which listeners can identify familiar tunes (around 0.8 to 6.0 notes/s). Faster and slower tunes are difficult to identify. The authors assessed fast and slow melody-identification thresholds for 80 listeners ages 17-79 years with expertise varying from musically untrained to professional. On fast-to-slow (FS) trials the tune started at a very fast tempo and slowed until the listener identified it. Slow-to-fast (SF) trials started slow and accelerated. Tunes either retained their natural rhythms or were stylized isochronous versions. Increased expertise led to better performance for both FS and SF thresholds ( r = .45). Performance declined uniformly across the 62-year age range in the FS condition ( r = .27). SF performance was unaffected by age. Although early encoding processes may slow with age, expertise has a greater effect. Musical expertise involves perceptual learning with melodies at a wide range of tempos.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.13.3.462