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Do you see what I'm singing?: visuospatial movement biases pitch perception

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Do you see what I'm singing? visuospatial movement biases pitch perception. / Connell, Louise; Cai, Zhenguang G.; Holler, Judith.
In: Brain and Cognition, Vol. 81, No. 1, 02.2013, p. 124-130.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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Connell L, Cai ZG, Holler J. Do you see what I'm singing? visuospatial movement biases pitch perception. Brain and Cognition. 2013 Feb;81(1):124-130. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.09.005

Author

Connell, Louise ; Cai, Zhenguang G. ; Holler, Judith. / Do you see what I'm singing? visuospatial movement biases pitch perception. In: Brain and Cognition. 2013 ; Vol. 81, No. 1. pp. 124-130.

Bibtex

@article{028df3fca10c43128d3702c9255f838b,
title = "Do you see what I'm singing?: visuospatial movement biases pitch perception",
abstract = "The nature of the connection between musical and spatial processing is controversial. While pitch may be described in spatial terms such as {"}high{"} or {"}low{"}, it is unclear whether pitch and space are associated but separate dimensions or whether they share representational and processing resources. In the present study, we asked participants to judge whether a target vocal note was the same as (or different from) a preceding cue note. Importantly, target trials were presented as video clips where a singer sometimes gestured upward or downward while singing that target note, thus providing an alternative, concurrent source of spatial information. Our results show that pitch discrimination was significantly biased by the spatial movement in gesture, such that downward gestures made notes seem lower in pitch than they really were, and upward gestures made notes seem higher in pitch. These effects were eliminated by spatial memory load but preserved under verbal memory load conditions. Together, our findings suggest that pitch and space have a shared representation such that the mental representation of pitch is audiospatial in nature.",
keywords = "Mental representation, Pitch perception , Music, Space, Spatial representation",
author = "Louise Connell and Cai, {Zhenguang G.} and Judith Holler",
year = "2013",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1016/j.bandc.2012.09.005",
language = "English",
volume = "81",
pages = "124--130",
journal = "Brain and Cognition",
issn = "1090-2147",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do you see what I'm singing?

T2 - visuospatial movement biases pitch perception

AU - Connell, Louise

AU - Cai, Zhenguang G.

AU - Holler, Judith

PY - 2013/2

Y1 - 2013/2

N2 - The nature of the connection between musical and spatial processing is controversial. While pitch may be described in spatial terms such as "high" or "low", it is unclear whether pitch and space are associated but separate dimensions or whether they share representational and processing resources. In the present study, we asked participants to judge whether a target vocal note was the same as (or different from) a preceding cue note. Importantly, target trials were presented as video clips where a singer sometimes gestured upward or downward while singing that target note, thus providing an alternative, concurrent source of spatial information. Our results show that pitch discrimination was significantly biased by the spatial movement in gesture, such that downward gestures made notes seem lower in pitch than they really were, and upward gestures made notes seem higher in pitch. These effects were eliminated by spatial memory load but preserved under verbal memory load conditions. Together, our findings suggest that pitch and space have a shared representation such that the mental representation of pitch is audiospatial in nature.

AB - The nature of the connection between musical and spatial processing is controversial. While pitch may be described in spatial terms such as "high" or "low", it is unclear whether pitch and space are associated but separate dimensions or whether they share representational and processing resources. In the present study, we asked participants to judge whether a target vocal note was the same as (or different from) a preceding cue note. Importantly, target trials were presented as video clips where a singer sometimes gestured upward or downward while singing that target note, thus providing an alternative, concurrent source of spatial information. Our results show that pitch discrimination was significantly biased by the spatial movement in gesture, such that downward gestures made notes seem lower in pitch than they really were, and upward gestures made notes seem higher in pitch. These effects were eliminated by spatial memory load but preserved under verbal memory load conditions. Together, our findings suggest that pitch and space have a shared representation such that the mental representation of pitch is audiospatial in nature.

KW - Mental representation

KW - Pitch perception

KW - Music

KW - Space

KW - Spatial representation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84869881191&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.09.005

DO - 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.09.005

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 23195703

VL - 81

SP - 124

EP - 130

JO - Brain and Cognition

JF - Brain and Cognition

SN - 1090-2147

IS - 1

ER -