Taking it Home: Assessing Melodic Expectancies in 14-month Old Infants

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the associative learning of statistically-frequent, hierarchically-derived melodic sequences in 14-month-old infants, with the ultimate goal of comparing infant musical and linguistic knowledge. Using the Head-Turn Preference Procedure (Nelson et al., 1995), we assessed infant listening preferences for Western Tonal melodies with expected endings, and Western Tonal melodies with unexpected endings, specifically asking whether the infant participants would be able to discriminate the melodic sets. Successful discrimination would indicate knowledge of the statistically-frequent, expected nature of the expected-ending melodies. After comparing mean listening times for the two sets of stimuli, we found no significant difference, which would imply that – at 14 months – infants do not have expectations for the expected nature of our melodies. However, female and male participants demonstrated longer listening times for different stimuli, which may indicate that 14-month-old infants can discriminate expected and unexpected melodies, but that the two genders possess opposing listening preferences. More participants would be needed to further assess this inference.