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The Role of Melodic Contour in Linguistic Processing Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Yun Wang Graduate Program in Music The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee Udo Will, Advisor Graeme Boone Marjorie K.M. Chan 1 Copyrighted by Yun Wang 2017 2 Abstract Melodic contour is one of the bridges connecting language and music. It is considered as one of the basic aspects of music and easier perceptible than intervals (e.g. Edworthy, 1985; Patel, 2008). Some music phenomena, such as speech surrogates, imply that tonal information may help listeners decode messages. In this study, we investigate how pitch contours affect linguistic processing by applying one lexical decision task and one speech shadowing task. The first experiment involved a lexical decision task, where participants were required to judge whether syllables they heard are words or non-words. The result shows musicians responded with a shorter reaction time, suggesting extended musical training makes contour processing more efficiently. Females outperformed males in speed, indicating the possible gender bias. The results indicate that it is easier to make a decision for non- words, as they have no entry in the mental lexicon, and, it is harder to do so for pseudo- words, as they are very similar to words. For non-words, the fastest responses occur when the tones do not match, suggesting that when melodic contours and non-word syllables differ in tones, it may speed up the decision process. Interestingly, a facilitatory effect was found in words only under match condition. This helps us understand how musical speech surrogates work, because many musical speech surrogates map lexical tones into ii whistling/instruments: as tonal information is a part of lexicon, melodic pitch contours lead to the pre-activation of the lexicon, resulting in the larger facilitation size. The second experiment involved a speech shadowing task, where participants were asked to repeat the target items. The results support the idea that tonal information facilitates linguistic processing. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in both speed and accuracy, confirming the enhanced ability and sensitivity in contour processing. One of the most important results is that timbre was a significant main factor in speech shadowing task: vocal primes generated fastest responses than instrumental and noise primes, supporting the view that the special role played by the voice in human communication contributed to an increased sensibility and attention to human voice. Vocal primes seem to activate the speech motor system, which is engaged in the vocal tract movement planning, leading to faster responses. In the shadowing task, pseudo-words were responded as fast as non- words. We suggested that this is because of the different task requirements, as there was no need to identify the lexical status, rather, participants needed to store the input phonological sound in mind and then activate the motor system to reproduce the sounds. In both experiments, we found that different contours did not have the same priming effects, and we suggested it would be interesting to further explore what caused these difference in future studies. This dissertation demonstrates the possibility of bridging musicology and linguistics. This interdisciplinary study gives us some new insights into the role and importance of melodic contours in linguistic processing, offering evidence and a better understanding of iii certain musical phenomena, e.g. how musical speech surrogates can carry messages with pitch and contour only. iv Dedication to my family v Acknowledgments Special thanks go out to Dr. Will. I am very grateful for your encouragement and understanding. You not only offered important feedbacks and insights on my dissertation, but also empathy with my feelings when I was down. I’m so lucky to have you been my advisor, and will never forget those chats with you. I would thank Dr. Chan and Dr. Boone, for your patience with my questions and offering helpful advice during classes, candidacy exam and dissertation writing. Thank you very much, Ma Laoshi, for inviting me to attend the ICS graduate forum, which was really a good experience. Also, I’d thank my family members, especially little Raina, for she smiled broadly every time I came back home from library, and her frequent waking up did help me get up early to write my dissertation (smile). And finally, I’d offer special gratitude to the Mixter family for providing the Professor Keith E. Mixter Scholarship for Music History unselfishly to support my research. I am really honored to have been selected as a recipient of this scholarship. Thanks all for your support! vi Vita 2010................................................................................... B.A. Recording Arts, Capital Normal University 2013................................................................................... M.A. Musicology, Capital Normal University 2013 to 2016 ......................................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Music vii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ........................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi Vita .................................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. Music and language ........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Music and language: from the origin ........................................................................ 1 1.2 The similarities and differences between speech and music .................................... 6 1.3 Mechanism for language processing and music processing ..................................... 9 Chapter 2. Pitch contour as a starting point ...................................................................... 14 2.1 The importance of pitch contour ............................................................................. 14 2.2 Why people use musical speech surrogates ............................................................ 18 2.3 Musical speech surrogate types .............................................................................. 19 2.4 How musical speech surrogate works: starting from exploring how pitch contour affect mental lexicon accessing .................................................................................... 22 Chapter 3. Sounds from instrumental and vocal sources .................................................. 28 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 28 3.2 Preference to vocal sounds...................................................................................... 29 3.3 Previous studies regarding vocal and instrumental sounds..................................... 33 Chapter 4. Music training—a cultural factor affects pitch contour perception ................ 38 4.1 The enhanced contour processing ability in musicians ........................................... 38 4.2 Previous studies regarding the interaction between melodic contour and lexical processing in terms of musicianship ............................................................................. 45 Chapter 5. Pitch contour priming experiments ................................................................. 50 viii 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 50 5.2 Materials ................................................................................................................. 53 5.3 Experimental Variables ........................................................................................... 56 5.4 Experiment 1 ........................................................................................................... 57 5.5 Experiment 2 ........................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 6. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 107 6.1 Findings Summary ................................................................................................ 107 6.2 Limitations of current study and possibilities for future studies........................... 109 6.3 A possible new direction regarding pitch and contour influence: music text-setting. ..................................................................................................................................... 112 6.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 115 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................
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