Can musical transformations be implicitly learned?

The dominant theory of what people can learn implicitly is that they learn chunks of adjacent elements in sequences. A type of musical grammar that goes beyond specifying allowable chunks is provided by serialist or 12-tone music. The rules constitute operations over variables and could not be appreciated as such by a system that can only chunk elements together. A series of studies investigated the extent to which people could implicitly (or explicitly) learn the structures of serialist music. We found that people who had no background in atonal music did not learn the structures, but highly selected participants with an interest in atonal music could implicitly learn to detect melodies instantiating the structures. The results have implications for both theorists of implicit learning and composers who may wish to know which structures they put into a piece of music can be appreciated. © 2004 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

[1]  Z. Dienes,et al.  UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF ARTIFICIAL GRAMMARS IS APPLIED STRATEGICALLY , 1995 .

[2]  N. Chater,et al.  Transfer in artificial grammar learning : A reevaluation , 1996 .

[3]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Mechanisms of Implicit Learning: Connectionist Models of Sequence Processing , 1993 .

[4]  Paul Pedersen.  The Perception of Octave Equivalence in Twelve-Tone Rows , 1975 .

[5]  Josef Perner,et al.  Unifying consciousness with explicit knowledge , 2003 .

[6]  P. Perruchet,et al.  Implicit learning of an artificial grammar of musical timbres , 1998 .

[7]  D. Shanks,et al.  Two mechanisms in implicit artificial grammar learning? Comment on Meulemans and Van der Linden (1997). , 1999 .

[8]  J. Hoffmann,et al.  The European Society for Cognitive Psychology , 1999 .

[9]  Z. Dienes,et al.  A theory of implicit and explicit knowledge , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[10]  R. Jackendoff,et al.  A Generative Theory of Tonal Music , 1985 .

[11]  Pawel Lewicki,et al.  Nonconscious Social Information Processing , 1986 .

[12]  P. Merikle,et al.  Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual processes. , 1986, Canadian journal of psychology.

[13]  Stuart M. Shieber,et al.  Evidence against the context-freeness of natural language , 1985 .

[14]  R. Mathews,et al.  Role of Implicit and Explicit Processes in Learning From Examples : A Synergistic Effect , 2004 .

[15]  J. D. Smith,et al.  Spun Steel and Stardust: The Rejection of Contemporary Compositions , 1989 .

[16]  Z. Dienes,et al.  The role of specific instances in controlling a dynamic system , 1995 .

[17]  H. Pashler,et al.  Confidence and Accuracy of Near-Threshold Discrimination Responses , 2001, Consciousness and Cognition.

[18]  H. C. Longuet-Higgins,et al.  Perception of melodies , 1976, Nature.

[19]  Pierre Perruchet,et al.  Synthetic Grammar Learning : Implicit Rule Abstraction or Explicit Fragmentary Knowledge ? Pierre Perruchet and Chantal Pacteau , 1990 .

[20]  R. Tunney,et al.  Two modes of transfer in artificial grammar learning. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[21]  P. Merikle,et al.  Priming with and without awareness , 1984, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  William Ennis Thomson,et al.  Schoenberg's Error , 1992 .

[23]  A M Burton,et al.  Incidental Learning of Real-World Regularities , 2001, Psychological science.

[24]  Shelley Channon,et al.  Is implicit learning spared in amnesia? Rule abstraction and item familiarity in artificial grammar learning , 2002, Neuropsychologia.

[25]  W. Balch.  The role of symmetry in the good continuation ratings of two-part tonal melodies , 1981, Perception & psychophysics.

[26]  Pierre Perruchet,et al.  Defining the knowledge units of a synthetic language: comment on Vokey and Brooks (1992) , 1994 .

[27]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Assumptions of subjective measures of unconscious mental states: higher order thoughts and bias , 2004 .

[28]  Walter J Dowling,et al.  Recognition of melodic transformations: Inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion , 1972 .

[29]  Michel Imberty,et al.  How do we perceive atonal music? Suggestions for a theoretical approach , 1993 .

[30]  P. Ashworth,et al.  Handbook of Implicit Learning , 1998 .

[31]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Connectionist and Memory-Array Models of Artificial Grammar Learning , 1992, Cogn. Sci..

[32]  J. Sloboda.  Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition , 1985 .

[33]  Christiaan de Lannoy.  Detection and discrimination of dodecaphonic series , 1972 .

[34]  Z. Dienes,et al.  On the modality independence of implicitly learned grammatical knowledge , 1995 .

[35]  C. Krumhansl.  Tonality Induction: A Statistical Approach Applied Cross-Culturally , 2000 .

[36]  Elizabeth K. Johnson,et al.  Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults , 1999, Cognition.

[37]  Z Dienes,et al.  The Role of Implicit Memory in Controlling a Dynamic System , 1998, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[38]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation , 2003 .

[39]  John R. Vokey,et al.  Abstract analogies and abstracted grammars: Comments on Reber and Mathews et al. , 1991 .

[40]  B. W. Whittlesea,et al.  Incidentally, things in general are particularly determined: An episodic-processing account of implicit learning , 1993 .

[41]  P. Merikle,et al.  Perception without awareness. Critical issues. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[42]  Luis Jiménez.  Intention, attention, and consciousness in probabilistic sequence learning , 2003 .

[43]  Dianne C. Berry,et al.  Implicit Learning , 1993 .

[44]  L R Squire,et al.  The information acquired during artificial grammar learning. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[45]  Arthur S. Reber,et al.  Cognition Unawares. (Book Reviews: Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge. An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious.) , 1996 .

[46]  Regina Bernhaupt,et al.  Application of implicit knowledge: deterministic or probabilistic? , 1997 .

[47]  G. Miller,et al.  Cognitive science. , 1981, Science.

[48]  Jochen Braun,et al.  Blindsight in normal observers , 1995, Nature.

[49]  David R. Shanks,et al.  Abstractionist and Processing Accounts of Implicit Learning , 2001, Cognitive Psychology.

[50]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Two ways of learning associations , 2003, Cogn. Sci..

[51]  D. Berry.  How implicit is implicit learning , 1997 .

[52]  Diana Deutsch,et al.  THE PROCESSING OF PITCH COMBINATIONS , 1999 .

[53]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Modality Independence of Implicitly Learned Grammatical Knowledge , 2004 .

[54]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Learning Artificial Grammars With Competitive Chunking , 1990 .

[55]  C. Krumhansl,et al.  The Perception of Tone Hierarchies and Mirror Forms in Twelve-Tone Serial Music , 1987 .

[56]  David R. Shanks,et al.  Subjective measures of awareness and implicit cognition , 2003, Memory & cognition.

[57]  H. C. Longuet-Higgins.  The perception of music. , 1979, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[58]  Zoltán Dienes,et al.  Implicit synthesis , 1997 .

[59]  A. Reber.  Implicit learning and tacit knowledge , 1993 .

[60]  Josef Perner,et al.  Assumptions of a subjective measure of consciousness: Three mappings , 2004 .

[61]  Robert F. Hadley.  Very Rapid Induction of General Patterns , 2001 .

[62]  Carl Martin Allwood,et al.  Realism in confidence judgements of performance based on implicit learning. , 2000 .

[63]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Mapping across domains without feedback: A neural network model of implicit learning , 1999 .

[64]  Fred Lerdahl,et al.  Cognitive constraints on compositional systems , 1992 .

[65]  J. Jastrow,et al.  On small differences in sensation , 1884 .

[66]  Zoltán Dienes,et al.  Transfer of implicit knowledge across domains? How implicit and how abstract? , 1997 .