Harmonic expectancy violations: Testing the effects of familiarity, lead-in time, and ecological validity

Abstract

In this article, the impact of three experimental parameters in a harmonic expectancy study are evaluated: stimulus duration (specifically the lead-in time prior to an unexpected event), ecological validity of the stimulus (original recording vs. piano only), and familiarity. This article also presents a novel experimental paradigm for detecting expectancy violations in a real-time listening context with increased ecological validity, as well as a novel quasi-blind stimulus-selection procedure. Results suggest that the importance of the ecological validity of the stimulus may depend on the population of the study (i.e., musicians or non-musicians), and that the role of familiarity ought to be more rigorously examined. Specifically, it appears that the ability to notice a harmonic expectancy violation may be modulated by the degree of prior familiarity with the stimulus. In addition, stimuli with longer lead-in times lead to an increase in the probability of marking a harmonically surprising event. Implications for expectancy-violation theory, computational modeling, prediction error theory, and general stimulus-selection procedures in music perception and cognition research are discussed.