Large melodic intervals and multiple transpositions each independently impair deviant detection.

Evidence

We found that task difficulty increases when patterns contain large intervals (5–7 semitones) rather than small intervals (1–3 semitones). While task difficulty increases substantially when transpositions are introduced, the effect of transposition size (large vs small) is weaker. Increasing the range of permissible intervals to be used also makes the task more difficult. Furthermore, providing an initial exact repetition followed by subsequent transpositions does not improve performance. Although musical training correlates with task performance, we find no evidence that violations to musical intervals important in Western music (i.e. the perfect fifth or fourth) are more easily detected. In summary, relative pitch perception does not appear to be conducive to simple explanations based exclusively on invariant physical ratios. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5261

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does the insensitivity to Western-important intervals (perfect fifth/fourth) hold in impaired hearing populations, or does training interact differently?
• XREF: Relates to general claims about pattern statistics and interval coding in psychoacoustics reading.