The Effect of Tonal Proximity upon the Memory of a Set of Tones

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of music to which people respond. Ortmann's finding that the songs of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and R. Strauss are characterized by more frequent use of smaller intervals implies that small intervals are more typical in western music.

In Experiment I random sets of notes were played by the experimenter on a toy xylophone, and the subject was asked to reproduce the set on an identical instrument. The results were that subjects were generally capable of finding the correct notes, but this ability declined as the size of the set increased.

Experiment II was completed in order to discern the effect of interval size upon the memory of a set of notes. Four sets of numbers were constructed, with each number referring to a key on the experimenter's xylophone. The intervals within the four sets were 0-1, 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4.

The data were not completely consistent; however, the results tended to support the contention that as interval size increases, the level of performance declines. Subjects also tended to restrict the range of their responses. The conclusion was that the subjects tend to prefer smaller intervals because they are more characteristic of the music to which they are accustomed.

Attempts were made to explain the inconsistences of the data and to relate the results to Bartlett's theory of mind.