The perceptual reality of tone chroma in early infancy

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Abstract
It has often been advanced that pitch is a 2-dimensional perceptual attribute, its 2 dimensions being: tone height, a perceptual quality monotonically related to frequency; and tone chroma, a quality shared by tones forming an octave interval. However, given that many musically uneducated adults do not seem to perceive tone chroma, this model is controversial. The sensitivity of 3-mo.-old infants to tone chroma was investigated by means of a behavioral habituation-dishabituation procedure. Infants were presented with 2 successive melodic sequences of pure tones, the 2nd sequence being a distorted version of the 1st. The distortion consisted in shifting the frequency of some of the original tones, through a seventh or a ninth for some infants, through an octave for others. In the former case, infants displayed significant novelty reactions. In the latter case, significant novelty reactions were observed when the 2 sequences differed in melodic contour, but not when they had the same contour. Apparently, young infants are sensitive to both tone height and tone chroma, and tone chroma perception does not necessitate some form of musical experience.

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