Melody recognition: The experimental application of musical rules

Three experiments tested the recognition of transposed 3-tone melodies in a standard 2-alternative forced-choice psychophysical paradigm. Melodies were tested alone or embedded in 1 of 3 types of contexts that varied in degree of conformity to the rules of diatonicism and cadential ending. Results, replicated for both piano and sine-tone stimuli, indicate significant effects of contextual conditions, key of error, and key of transposition. Ease of recognition in transposition was related to the identification and application of rules defining structures among tones and among tone sets, and to the use of rules for detecting structural violations.