Children's perception of melody and rhythm as invariant qualities: The selective attention of children in grades 1, 4, and 7 to melody or rhythm in five-note sequences

This exploratory study investigated the tendency of children to perceive rhythm or pitch as the invariant quality of a five-note melody. Of particular interest were differences in the responses of subjects by gender and grade level, and a possible alignment of the results with Piaget's stages of development. A total of 140 students in grades 1, 4, and 7 participated in the study.; Research in the perception of aural stimuli has been limited, and no standardized test was found to be appropriate. The author developed a 10-item Best Match of Aural Stimuli (BMAT-Aural) test based upon available literature. In each item, a five-note melody was followed by two variations, one of which retained the original rhythm and the other retained the original pitches. Students were to listen to each item, and decide which one of the variations was most like the original five-note melody. There was no intended correct response.; This study also considered possible relationships between attention to invariant qualities in aural stimuli, and other skills often associated with music learning. No standardized tests were found to be appropriate, therefore, the author-developed assessment instrument was expanded to five tests. Data were collected with respect to pitch memory, rhythm memory, musical interests and participation, and the perception of visual stimuli.; Responses were analyzed by measures of central tendency, one-way analysis of variance, and the Pearson product-moment correlation. These procedures yielded the following information with respect to the BMAT-Aural, and the perception of an invariant quality in aural stimuli: (1) Subjects tended to choose rhythm-constant variations as the best match of the original melodies. (2) Selective attention may have been influenced by meter, repeated pitches, and/or rhythmic patterns involving single eighth notes. (3) Differences significant to the.10 level were found between the responses of subjects in grades 1 and 7 on choice-preference tasks; no differences were found between grades 1 and 4 or 4 and 7. (4) Differences significant to the.05 level were found between the responses of subjects in all grades on memory tasks. (5) Little or no difference between responses could be attributed to gender. (6) Very few significant correlations existed between scores on the BMAT-Aural and other variables.