Effects of length, tonal structure, and contour in the recognition of tone series

Four experiments on recognition of tone series are reported . The first experiment tested the accuracy of recognition in relation to length, contour complexity, and tonal structure of the series. Series comprised (I) 7 or 10 tones, (2) either a strong or a weak tonal structure, depending on the temporal ordering of the tones, and (3) few or many contour reversals- The second experiment used 7-tone series having either a strong or a weak tonal structure, depending on the mode (Ionian or Phrygian) in which the series was presented . Both experiments employed a samedifferent task in which a standard series was compared with either an exact or an inexact transposition, the latter type having one incorrectly transposed tone (mostly nondiatonic in Experiment 1 and always diatonic in Experiment 2). These experiments showed that (1) 7-tone series were better recognized than were 10-tone series, (2) series with a strong tonal structure were better recognized than were series with a weak tonal structure, and {3} contour complexity did not influence the responses . Two control experiments, using mistuned tone series, showed that the outcomes of Experiments 1 and 2 could not be attributed to nonmusical artifacts of the stimulus set.