The Perception of Pitch Contours in Typically Developing Children with and without Musical Training

Abstract

Background and Aim: Musical training causes neuroplasticity changes which are transferred to other modalities like- audition, cognition. All the musical tests use musical stimuli, which can be challenging for children without musical training due to the unfamiliarity of the stimuli. Dynamic stimuli like pitch contours, mimic musical stimuli. Hence the present study aimed to investigate the perception of pitch contour for different tonal stimuli in typically developing children with and without musical training.

Methods: Children aged 9–13 years were categorized into two groups: Group I (with formal musical training) and Group II (without musical training). Musical abilities were assessed using the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Music Abilities (MBEMA) test, with melody, rhythm, and memory subtests. The melody and rhythm subtests had discrimination of musical tones, while the memory subtest had identification of familiar melodies from previous subtests. Pitch contours for tonal stimulus were generated using PRAAT software. These contours consisted of tone sweeps representing nine patterns (rising, rising-flat, rising-falling, flat, flat-rising, flat-falling, falling, falling-flat, and falling-rising) for 500 Hz, 1, and 2 kHz tones. Children were familiarized with these contours and tested using closed- set identification task using DMDX software.

Results: Group I outperformed Group II in both musical ability and pitch contour identification tests. MANOVA revealed significant differences in MBEMA and pitch contour identification between the groups.

Conclusion: The contour perception of the different pitch shows evident differences induced by musical training. It is proposed to assess the musical ability of the individual with the tonal pitch contours.

Keywords: Perception; pitch contours; musical training