Innateness, Experience, and Music Perception
- 1 July 1990
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Science
- Vol. 1 (4) , 272-276
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00213.x
Abstract
Musical acculturation from infancy to adulthood was studied by testing the abilities of Western 6-month-olds and adults to notice mistunings in melodies based on native Western major, native Western minor, and non-native Javanese pelog scales. Results indicated that infants were similarly able to perceive native and non-native scales. Adults, however, were generally better perceivers of native than non-native scales. These findings suggest that infants are born with an equipotentiality for the perception of scales from a variety of cultures and that subsequent culturally specific experience substantially influences music perception.Keywords
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