Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
Department of Psychology, St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, USA.
Psychol Res. 2022 Apr;86(3):792-807. doi: 10.1007/s00426-021-01527-0. Epub 2021 May 20.
Pitch content is an important component of song and speech. Previous studies have shown a pronounced advantage for imitation of sung pitch over spoken pitch. However, it is not clear to what extent matching of pitch in production depends on one's intention to imitate pitch. We measured the effects of intention to imitate on matching of produced pitch in both vocal domains. Participants imitated pitch content in speech and song stimuli intentionally ("imitate the pitch") and incidentally ("repeat the words"). Our results suggest that the song advantage exists independently of whether participants explicitly intend to imitate pitch. This result supports the notion that the song advantage reflects pitch salience in the stimulus. On the other hand, participants were more effective at suppressing the imitation of pitch for song than for speech. This second result suggests that it is easier to dissociate phonetic content from pitch in the context of song than in speech. Analyses of individual differences showed that intention to imitate pitch had larger effects for individuals who tended to match pitch overall in production, independent of intentions. Taken together, the results help to illuminate the psychological processes underlying intentional and automatic vocal imitation processes.
音高内容是歌曲和言语的重要组成部分。先前的研究表明，模仿歌曲音高比模仿言语音高具有明显的优势。然而，目前尚不清楚在多大程度上，产生的音高与模仿音高的意图相匹配。我们在言语和歌曲这两个音域中测量了意图模仿对产生的音高匹配的影响。参与者有意（“模仿音高”）和无意（“重复单词”）模仿言语和歌曲刺激中的音高内容。我们的结果表明，无论参与者是否明确意图模仿音高，歌曲优势都存在。这一结果支持了歌曲优势反映刺激中音高显著性的观点。另一方面，参与者在抑制歌曲中模仿音高方面比在言语中更有效。第二个结果表明，在歌曲的语境中，从音高中分离出语音内容比在言语中更容易。个体差异分析表明，对于那些在产生时总体上倾向于匹配音高的个体，意图模仿音高的效果更大，而与意图无关。总的来说，这些结果有助于阐明有意和自动发声模仿过程背后的心理过程。
