Abstract

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the differences in perceptual categorization between musicians and non-musicians for musical intervals, scales, modes and chords. In the interval identification, musicians were able to exactly identify twelve interval size of categorization, while non-musicians overestimated narrow intervals and underestimated wide intervals. As a result, twelve interval categories tended to be reduced to five or six. In the discrimination of various scale types, major-minor modes, semitones and chord structures, both groups did not show much differences. However, in the discrimination of tonal and atonal melody, the musicians showed more consistent and sensitive responses than non-musicians. Both groups showed more significant differences when the melody changes with type of scales than with major-minor modes. The differences between major-minor mode was more significant with the western heptatonic scale than with the Korean pentatonic scale. Perception of melody similarity was influenced by differences in the semitone structure of each scale. As a consequence, the western heptatonic scale and the Japanese pentatonic scale was categorized as similar, but Korean pentatonic scale showed distinctive tonality since it was not classified into any general tonal or atonal scale. When the melody of the Korean pentatonic scale was added to the parallel chord, the perception of melody similarity was generally influenced by the consonancy of the chord. Exceptionally, the parallel chord of the minor third was found to be better suited to the baseline melody than that of the major third. This suggests the key distance effect was affected on the results.