Infants’ perception of rhythmic patterns

We explored 9-month-old infants perception of auditory temporal sequences in a series of three experiments. In Experiment 1, we presented some infants with tone sequences that were expected to induce a strongly metric framework and others with a sequence that was expected to induce a weakly metric framework or no such framework. Infants detected a change in the context of the former sequences but not in the latter sequence. In Experiment 2, infants listened to a tone sequence with temporal cues to duple or triple meter. Infants detected a change in the pattern with duple meter but not in the pattern with triple meter. In Experiment 3, infants listened to a tone sequence with harmonic cues to duple or triple meter. As in Experiment 2, infants detected a change in the context of the duple meter pattern but not in the context of triple meter. These findings are consistent with processing predispositions for auditory temporal sequences that induce a metric framework, particularly those in duple meter

Musicality in Infancy

The present review summarizes the available evidence on musicality, or music-related abilities, in infants (birth to 3 years). In the early months of life, infants are responsive to the pitch and temporal patterns of music. Their perceptual skills are similar, in many respects, to those of adults, presumably because of the nature of the human auditory system. Adult-infant differences, where evident, are attributable to infants’ unfamiliarity with the musical conventions of their culture. Musical enculturation proceeds more rapidly for temporal than for pitch processing. Musical exposure, especially the singing of caregivers, is prevalent in infancy. Caregivers’ music-making for infants has consequences for their emotional and social regulation and for their subsequent self-regulation abilities. By the end of their first year, most infants have become music-makers as well as music listeners. They move spontaneously to music, and their patterns of “dancing” undergo considerable change in the subsequent months and years. Early dancing is influenced by the familiarity of the music, and later dancing may include aspects of caregivers’ dance movements. Although the onset of singing occurs considerably later than the onset of dance, early singing is remarkably accurate in terms of its pitch range, pitch contours, rhythmic patterning, and fluency, especially when infants sing in their familiar home environment

Musicality in Infancy

The present review summarizes the available evidence on musicality, or music-related abilities, in infants (birth to 3 years). In the early months of life, infants are responsive to the pitch and temporal patterns of music. Their perceptual skills are similar, in many respects, to those of adults, presumably because of the nature of the human auditory system. Adult-infant differences, where evident, are attributable to infants’ unfamiliarity with the musical conventions of their culture. Musical enculturation proceeds more rapidly for temporal than for pitch processing. Musical exposure, especially the singing of caregivers, is prevalent in infancy. Caregivers’ music-making for infants has consequences for their emotional and social regulation and for their subsequent self-regulation abilities. By the end of their first year, most infants have become music-makers as well as music listeners. They move spontaneously to music, and their patterns of “dancing” undergo considerable change in the subsequent months and years. Early dancing is influenced by the familiarity of the music, and later dancing may include aspects of caregivers’ dance movements. Although the onset of singing occurs considerably later than the onset of dance, early singing is remarkably accurate in terms of its pitch range, pitch contours, rhythmic patterning, and fluency, especially when infants sing in their familiar home environment

Adults recognize toddlers’ song renditions

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The present study explored the singing ability of toddlers 16 months to 3 years of age by examining North American adults’ ability to identify toddlers’ renditions of familiar tunes sung with foreign lyrics. After listening to each toddler’s song, half with familiar melodies and half with unfamiliar melodies, adults attempted to name the songs. Their identification was highly accurate, refuting the prevailing view that toddlers focus on words at the expense of tunes. The singing range of these nonEnglish-speaking toddlers and that of their English-speaking counterparts approximated the pitch range of the target songs, which is inconsistent with the reportedly small singing range of toddlers. Toddlers’ apparent singing proficiency in the present context may stem from the use of home-based recordings and child-selected songs.Peer Reviewe

Cross-cultural perspectives on pitch memory.

Abstract We examined effects of age and culture on children's memory for the pitch level of familiar music. Canadian 9-and 10-year-olds distinguished the original pitch level of familiar television theme songs from foils that were pitch-shifted by one semitone, whereas 5-to 8-year-olds failed to do so (Experiment 1). In contrast, Japanese 5-and 6-year-olds distinguished the pitch-shifted foils from the originals, performing significantly better than same-age Canadian children (Experiment 2). Moreover, Japanese 6-year-olds were more accurate than their 5-year-old counterparts. These findings challenge the prevailing view of enhanced pitch memory during early life. We consider factors that may account for Japanese children's superior performance such as their use of a pitch accent language (Japanese) rather than a stress accent language (English) and their experience with musical pitch labels

Dancing to Metallica and Dora: Case Study of a 19-Month-Old

Rhythmic movement to music, whether deliberate (e.g., dancing) or inadvertent (e.g., foot-tapping), is ubiquitous. Although parents commonly report that infants move rhythmically to music, especially to familiar music in familiar environments, there has been little systematic study of this behavior. As a preliminary exploration of infants' movement to music in their home environment, we studied V, an infant who began moving rhythmically to music at 6 months of age. Our primary goal was to generate testable hypotheses about movement to music in infancy. Across nine sessions, beginning when V was almost 19 months of age and ending 8 weeks later, she was video-recorded by her mother during the presentation of 60-s excerpts from two familiar and two unfamiliar songs presented at three tempos—the original song tempo as well as faster and slower versions. V exhibited a number of repeated dance movements such as head-bobbing, arm-pumping, torso twists, and bouncing. She danced most to Metallica's Now that We're Dead, a recording that her father played daily in V's presence, often dancing with her while it played. Its high pulse clarity, in conjunction with familiarity, may have increased V's propensity to dance, as reflected in lesser dancing to familiar music with low pulse clarity and to unfamiliar music with high pulse clarity. V moved faster to faster music but only for unfamiliar music, perhaps because arousal drove her movement to familiar music. Her movement to music was positively correlated with smiling, highlighting the pleasurable nature of the experience. Rhythmic movement to music may have enhanced her pleasure, and the joy of listening may have promoted her movement. On the basis of behavior observed in this case study, we propose a scaled-up study to obtain definitive evidence about the effects of song familiarity and specific musical features on infant rhythmic movement, the developmental trajectory of dance skills, and the typical range of variation in such skills

Human Infants' Perception of Auditory Patterns

Humaninfants' perception of tone sequences or melodies is reviewed  the contextof related work with human adults and nonhuman species. For the  part,infants use an adult-like pitch processing strategy that is global and  ratherthan the local pitch strategy that is characteristic of the nonhuman species stud date. Thus they encode and retain the pitch configuration or contour of  withlittle attention to the absolute pitches of individual notes. In the case  structured melodies,specifically, melodies that are prototypical of Western music, in encodemore precise relations, notably the intervals or exact pitch relations be adjacentnotes. Finally, the functional significance of relational pitch  inhuman infancy is  consideredprocessingtweenfantsof wella melody,iedto relationalmosti