Music perception and octave generalization in rhesus monkeys.

Abstract

Two rhesus monkeys were tested for octave generalization in 8 experiments by Wansposing 6-and 7-note musical passages by an octave and requiting same or different judgments.The monkeys showed no octave generalization to random-synthetic melodies, atonal melodies, or individual notes.They did show complete octave generalization to childhood songs (e.g., "Happy Birthday") and tonal melodies (from a tonality algorithm).Octave generalization was equally strong for 2-octave transpositions but not for 0.5or 1.5-octave transpositions of childhood songs.These results combine to show that tonal melodies form musical gestalts for monkeys, as they do for humans, and retain their identity when transposed with whole octaves so that chroma (key) is preserved.This conclusion implicates similar transduction, storage, processing, and relational memory of musical passages in monkeys and humans and has implications for nature-mLrmre origins of music perception.Music is considered among cultures' highest achievements.Nevertheless, music from different cultures shares many characteristics.Among these common characteristics is that all music uses a limited number of possible notes.A limited number of possible notes helps to make songs memorable and reproducible.Other factors contribute to their memorability, reproducibility, and general appeal.Take, for example, the familiar tune "Happy Birthday."There is no doubt about its memorability.The first four notes readily identify it.Furthermore, different sets of four notes separated by whole octaves suffice equally well to identify "Happy Birthday."Preverbal infants as well as adults can identify a transposed melody as the same melody while at the same time recognizing that the notes are different, that is, different pitch heights (e.g.,