Octave Generalization

Though I haven't looked up the full article, I would like reply to the
following abstract that John posted:

>" Sergeant, Desmond. "The octave: Percept or concept." Psychology of
>Music, 1983, v11 (n1):3-18.
>
>"Abstract: Investigated octave generalization in 90 4-9 yr olds by means
>of responses to matching tasks based on judgments of similarity. In E
>PI, 54 Subjects, presented with 5 tone bars differing in pitch within an
>octave range, were asked to match a 6th bar to 1 of the 5 bars. Results
>indicate a significant tendency for tonal similarity to be judged as
>proximity of pitch. In Exp II, the probability of judgment on the basis
>of pitch proximity was reduced by providing an array in which the 5
>tones were clustered together in pitch. In Exp III, 36 Subjects were
>asked to arrange 2 sets of 5 tone bars each so that the arrays were
>similar. Although a few Subjects completed the task, no significant
>ability
>to solve this octave transportation task was found. It is concluded that
>a concept of "octaveness" is developed experientially and is not of
>perceptual origin.

It sounds to me like all this proves is that the experimenters could not
explain to children what they meant by "similarity." Certainly there are a
lot of different dimensions along which sounds can be judged as similar or
dissimilar. These experimenters did not prove that octave generalization
was not among those dimensions, as they claimed to have, but only that if
given a vague direction, children will choose another criterion of
"similarity."

When my two-year-old first matched pitch, he did it by singing a clear
octave above a pitch I sang. I can't say whether this "concept of
'octaveness'" was of "experiential or perceptual origin," but it is clear
to me that children (and not just my own) judge octave-transposed melodies
as equivalent long before their fourth birthday. Otherwise would they only
be able to learn songs from their mothers?

Bill

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