Name:Erin Hopkins

School/Affiliation:Augustana College

Co-Authors:n/a

Virtual or In-person:Virtual

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Pitch-Height Stroop Test (PHST), a novel measure of cross-modal correspondence between pitch and both perceptual and linguistic aspects of spatial height. The PHST consisted of a baseline task and three Stroop-like tasks in which pitch was the relevant stimulus and the irrelevant stimuli were various representations of spatial height. English-speaking adult singers (n = 50) completed the PHST along with a demographic and musical background questionnaire, the Profile of Music Perception Skills pitch and melody subtests (Zentner & Strauss, 2017), a flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974), and the Vocal Sight-Reading Inventory (Henry, 1999).

Results indicated that the PHST was a valid and reliable measure for this population for purposes of group-level analysis. Magnitudes of pitch-height cross-modal correspondence appeared to reflect differences between unisensory and cross-sensory processing and showed moderate correlation between its linguistic and perceptual forms. Regression analysis indicated that perceptual pitch-height cross-modal correspondence was a positive predictor of sight-singing fluency, contributing approximately 10% of the sight-singing score variance. Linguistic pitch-height cross-modal correspondence did not contribute to sight-singing fluency. Correlation with musical background variables indicated that singers with greater amounts of music training showed lesser association between pitch and text-based height labels. Other associations between pitch-height cross-modal correspondence and musical background were limited. Implications include the potential usefulness of the PHST for future investigations and the suggestion that implicit perceptual association between pitch and height may be an important factor in music reading ability.