In ̄ uence of Global Structure on Musical Target Detection and Recognition

The present study adapted a paradigm used in visual perception by Biederman, Glass, and Stacy (1973) and analyzed the in ̄ uence of a coherent global context on the detection and recognition of musical target excerpts. Global coherence was modi® ed by segmenting minuets into chunks of four, two, or one bar. These chunks were either reordered (Experiments 1, 3, 4, 5) or transposed to different keys (Experiment 2). The results indicate that targe t detection is in ̄ uenced only by a reorganization on a very local level (i.e. chunks of one bar). Context incoherence did not in ̄ uence the recognition of the real targets, but rendered the rejection of wrong target excerpts (foils) more dif ® cult. The present ® ndings revealed only a weak effect of global context on target identi ® cation and only for extremely modi® ed structures.