The Development of the Ability to Perceive Melodies in a Noisy Environment

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of fundamental frequency (F0) separation on children's ability to recognize a target melody (the first six notes of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song) whose notes were interleaved with those of a background (distractor) melody. Children aged four, five, six, nine, ten and young adults participated in the study. Participants heard two pairs of interleaved melodies. One pair contained the correct version of the target melody; in the other pair, the 3rd or 4th notes of the target melody were shifted upwards or downwards by two semitones. Listeners were asked to select which of two pairs of interleaved melodies contained the correct version of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song, after which they received visual feedback about their response. Results showed that greater F0 separation improved performance, and that there was a small but statistically significant trend of increasing performance as age increased.