Abstract
Two chord-priming experiments employing the in-tune/out-of-tune decision task examined whether facilitation or disruption is dominant at brief inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) (Experiment 1), and whether each component tone of prime chords triggers the priming effects (Experiment 2). At all the ISIs (25, 100, 400ms), responses were significantly slower with higher error rates in the unrelated-prime condition than in the control condition, whereas responses were not significantly faster in the related-prime condition than in the control condition. No component tone of a related or unrelated prime chord triggered facilitation or disruption as much as the prime chords did. Thus, at brief ISIs disruption by the unrelated prime chords is dominant over facilitation by the related prime chords, which is similar to the results at longer ISIs (500, 2500ms) reported in the previous study. Pitch information regarding a specific tone in chords as a prime may not cause the disruptive effect, rather whole tones in chords may establish musical schemata, and mismatch events to the schemata disrupt the encoding process of the events.
