Effects of Atonal Melodic Repetition on Felt Time

Taher, Cecilia
Kim, Jin Hyun

Department of Musicology and Media Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin
Einstein Center Chronoi, Berlin, Germany

Portions of this research were presented at ICMPC-ESCOM2021. We are very grateful to all the people who selflessly gave their time to complete the experiment in its pilot or experimental phases. We thank Lindsey Reymore for proofreading the manuscript, Rie Asano for her insightful comments, and Jason Noble and Joshua Albrecht for their thorough review. This research was conducted within the project “Audible Temporality: How Time is Structured in–and Through–Music” (Einstein Center Chronoi) funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

Cecilia Taher is now at Musikschule Schwabach.

Cecilia Taher, Musikschule Schwabach, Wittelsbacher Straße 1, 91126 Schwabach, Germany [email protected]

Received March 16, 2022

revised January 6, 2023

Accepted February 15, 2023

Psychomusicology: Music, Mind & Brain 32(3-4):p 98-108, September 2022. | DOI: 10.1037/pmu0000297

Repetitive exposure, memory, and attention influence time judgments. Empirical research suggests that musical repetition affects the subjective estimation of duration, and that melodic repetition (repetition of melodies) interacts with memory and attention. Nevertheless, the effects of melodic repetition on the subjective estimation of duration remain largely unexplored. We investigate how exact (literal) melodic repetition affects listeners’ feelings of the temporal flow of 12-tone compositions. Musicians heard 16 original monodic keyboard pieces that either contained or avoided repetition, subsequently providing prospective estimates of felt duration and average phrase length (in seconds) for each piece. Compositions were structured in either 4- or 16-s phrases. Repetition occurred without lag (immediate) or after a contrasting melody (intercepted). The findings suggest that repetition contracts listeners’ feelings of the temporal span of entire pieces and their internal melodies, particularly when the latter are short. Brief melodies repeating without lag felt shorter than those intercepted with contrasting material. We consider previous theories of musical repetition (Huron's habituation-fluency, 2013; Margulis’ attention-shift, 2012) to interpret the results.