Influences of musical perception and production on working memory for melodies

• Grant number: 12/13973-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2012
• End date: February 29, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Gabriela Menezes de Oliveira
• Grantee: Mariana Elisa Benassi Werke
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/01181-9 - Discussion and improvement of the musical Skills Battery: research internship abroad for the postdoctoral project Influences of Musical Perception and Production Difficulties on Working Memory for Melodies (nº 2012/13973-4), BE.EP.PD

Abstract

In previous works we developed a memory test that measures short-term and working memory capacity for melodies: the tone span test. In this test the participant listen to increasing sequences of notes and must sing the heard sequences forward or backward (similar to the Digit Span Test). During the development of this test, we observed that a broader assessment of perception and vocal production abilities could bring answers about how much the tone span test performance may be influenced by those skills and it would allow that the test could be applied to tone deaf subjects. Therefore, one of our aims is to introduce more elaborated perception and vocal production tasks and consider those measures into account for the analysis of performance in tone span test. Additionally, this project aims to describe the distribution of musical abilities in Brazilian participants, giving contributions to the research on Music Cognition in Brazil. We will apply the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia, developed by Peretz et al. (2003), and the Musical Skills Battery, developed by Wise (2009), as measures in perception and vocal production, and the tone span test (Benassi-Werke et al., 2010, 2012). We will use a factor analysis to estimate the influence of each production, perception and memory skills on the tone span test performance. We will also conduct descriptive analysis of performances in each test, opening the possibility to make comparisons with other cultures. (AU)