Recognition of tone series: effects of structure, contour and length

An experiment is reported on the extent to which recognition of tone series is dependent on length, contour complexity and tonal structure of the series. The stimuli used were tone series comprising (I) 7 or 10 tones, (II) a simple or a complex tonal structure, (III) a few or many contour reversals. The task used was a same-different task in which a standard series was to be compared with a correct or an incorrect transposition. The results showed that (I) seventone series were better recognized than ten-tone series, (II) series with a simple tonal structure were better recognized than series with a complex tonal structure, and (III) contour complexity did not influence the responses.