Pitch height and brightness both contribute to elicit the SMARC effect: a replication study with expert musicians.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Pitch height and brightness both contribute to elicit the SMARC effect: a replication study with expert musicians.
Authors:	Pitteri, Marco (AUTHOR), Marchetti, Mauro (AUTHOR), Grassi, Massimo (AUTHOR), Priftis, Konstantinos (AUTHOR)
Source:	Psychological Research. Sep2021, Vol. 85 Issue 6, p2213-2222. 10p. 5 Charts, 3 Graphs.
Subjects:	Expertise, Musicians, Hypothesis, Evidence
Abstract:	Pitch-height can be represented in a spatial format. Reaction times (RTs) to lower pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the lower side of space, whereas RTs to higher pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the upper side of space. This effect is called the Spatial-Music Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect. We investigated how pitch-height and the brightness of a tone's timbre might contribute in eliciting the SMARC effect as a function of music expertise by comparing the results of 24 musicians with the results we gathered previously (Pitteri et al., 2017) with 24 non-musicians. Three experimental conditions were used: pitch-height varied, brightness varied; pitch-height varied, brightness fixed; pitch-height fixed, brightness varied. We found that the coherent modulation of both pitch-height and brightness elicited the strongest SMARC effect, independently of music expertise. These results add evidence to the hypothesis that the strongest SMARC effect does not belong to pitch-height or brightness, but to pitch-height and brightness together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection

Description
Abstract:	Pitch-height can be represented in a spatial format. Reaction times (RTs) to lower pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the lower side of space, whereas RTs to higher pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the upper side of space. This effect is called the Spatial-Music Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect. We investigated how pitch-height and the brightness of a tone's timbre might contribute in eliciting the SMARC effect as a function of music expertise by comparing the results of 24 musicians with the results we gathered previously (Pitteri et al., 2017) with 24 non-musicians. Three experimental conditions were used: pitch-height varied, brightness varied; pitch-height varied, brightness fixed; pitch-height fixed, brightness varied. We found that the coherent modulation of both pitch-height and brightness elicited the strongest SMARC effect, independently of music expertise. These results add evidence to the hypothesis that the strongest SMARC effect does not belong to pitch-height or brightness, but to pitch-height and brightness together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	03400727
DOI:	10.1007/s00426-020-01395-0