Deviant-pattern detection worsens as within-pattern interval variance rises but ignores interval magnitude

Evidence

There was a main effect of block (F(6,294) = 41.61, p < 0.001, ε = 0.790, partial η2 = 0.459). The effect of transposition (contrasting block 1 with the average of blocks 5 and 6) was significant (t = ‑10.36, p < 0.001). The effect of one exact repetition (contrasting block 2 with block 6) was not significant (t = 0.59, p = 0.559). The effect of variance in interval range (contrasting block 7 with the average of blocks 4 and 6) was significant (t = 3.20, p = 0.002). The more detailed trial-level correlation analysis showed performance correlated negatively with the variance of the pattern intervals (correlation coefficient = ‑0.336, p < 0.001). There was no significant correlation between the magnitude of the final interval and performance (correlation coefficient ‑0.298, p = 0.147). Posthoc multiple comparison analysis showed performance for musically important final intervals (perfect fourth and fifth, 5 and 7 semitones, respectively) was significantly lower than that for 1 semitone. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5319

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature that listeners encode relative interval structure of tone patterns, consistent with other chapters on the mechanisms of relative pitch in this same volume and the work on pattern deviance/mismatch negativity paradigms.