Pitch and temporal contributions to musical phrase perception: effects of harmony, performance timing, and familiarity.

Four experiments assessed pitch and temporal contributions to phrase judgments made on excerpts from classical music. In Experiment 1, pitch-condition trials retained the original pitch pattern but were equitemporal, temporal-condition trials retained the original temporal pattern but were equitonal, and combined-condition trials contained both patterns. In Experiment 2, one pattern was shifted in phase and recombined with the other pattern to create the pitch and temporal conditions; in the combined condition, both patterns were shifted together. The stimuli in Experiments 3 and 4 used durations from a recorded performance. In all experiments, a linear combination of the pitchand temporal-condition ratings accurately predicted the combinedcondition ratings. Familiarity with the music resulted in a higher correlation between pitchand temporal-condition ratings, but did not alter the additive relationship; performance timing had little effect.