Studying human infants provides an opportunity to explore the possi-
bility of such processing predispositions.If substantial adult-infant simi-
larities were evident in the perception of music,one could argue that at
least some aspects of music processing have a biological basis.That is not
to deny an important role for experience but rather to hold that per-
ception of music is inherently biased rather than unbiased.One could go
even further,proposing that the musics of the world have capitalized on
these biases or universals of auditory pattern processing.If that were the
case,music from different cultures could be expected to share some fun-
damental properties that make it discernible and memorable,perhaps
even appealing.
With these goals in mind,my colleagues and I studied infants’ per-
ception of music or musiclike patterns (for reviews,see Trehub and
Trainor 1993;Trehub,Schellenberg,and Hill 1997).For the most part,
melodies consisted of sequences of pure tones (sine waves) rather than
rich, complex tones, which allowed us to maximize control over
cues available to listeners.Naturally,we were unable to obtain verbal
responses from infants,but we still used rigorous means of estimating
their ability to detect specific changes in a repeating melody.In this
manner,we ascertained which features of a melody are salient and mem-
orable for such naive listeners.Specifically,we presented six- to nine-
month-olds with repetitions of a melody emanating from a loudspeaker
at one side,and rewarded them with an interesting visual display for
responding (by turning to the loudspeaker) to specified changes in the
melody (figure 23.1).Melody repetitions were generally presented at dif-
ferent pitch levels or tempos,forcing infants to solve the detection task
on the basis of relational cues (e.g.,pitch or temporal patterning) rather
than absolute cues such as specific pitches or durations (figure 23.2).
Comparisons of responses in the presence of a change (i.e.,“hits”) and
in the absence of a change (i.e.,“false alarms”) indicated whether infants
detected the change in question (for methodological details,see Trehub,
Thorpe,and Morrongiello 1987).These procedures revealed that infants’
perception of musiclike patterns is remarkably similar to that of adults
(see Trehub and Trainor 1993;Trehub,Schellenberg,and Hill 1997).Relational Processing of Auditory Patterns
After listening to a brief,unfamiliar melody,adults generally remember
little more than its melodic contour (pattern of pitch directional changes,
or ups and downs) and rhythm (Bartlett and Dowling 1980;Dowling
1994).Similarly,if infants hear a melody which is subsequently trans-
posed,with all pitches changed but the exact pitch relations (i.e.,428 Sandra Trehub