Re: For those who think they have a musical ear....


"Simon Gates" <simian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:11tvcke9aada812@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> TMack wrote:
>
> >
> > "Ferger" <terferger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:Xns975C3D01740Fgsx750057xsg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > http://www.delosis.com/listening/home.html [1]
> > >
> > > 28/30. But I wasn't certain of more than 2. Harder than I
> > > expected it to be.
> >
> > Badly designed test which provides no useful information. For
> > example, it appears to be testing auditory memory more that musical
> > ability. Someone with perfect pitch but poor short-term auditory
> > memory might score badly overall due to inability to remember the
> > more complex sequences that contain large numbers of notes.
>
> Yeah, I thought that at first, but then those that were different were
> very obvious 'wrong' notes in the second version, rather than just
> different tunes.

That may be true - but participants are not given this information in
advance. The instructions only refer to "same or different". The
differences COULD also have involved the sequence in which the notes are
played, the tempo, the pitch etc. There is nothing in the intro that says
that the differences only involve "wrong" notes. Therefore it is likely that
people with poor short-term auditory memory will be more likely to
incorrectly record identical pairs as different, based on their poor recall
of the individual notes and their sequence - and also their knowledge that
it is possible that something may have changed in the second version. I
would bet a lot of money that they get more errors that involve wrongly
identifying identical pairs as different than wrongly identifying different
pairs as the same.

One could think of variations on this test where the same notes are played
in each pair of tunes, but sometimes the second one has the notes in a
different sequence. Another version would be same notes but sometimes at a
slightly higher/lower pitch. Yet another would involve slower/faster tempo
or a different rhythm etc. etc.

--
Tony


.

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