The Applicability of Verbal Processing Strategies to Recall of Familiar Songs

Abstract

One hundred thirty-five undergraduate nonmusic majors participated in a free-recall task in which they were asked to remember the titles of 12 songs that they heard in different sequences. The investigators were seeking evidence that cognitive categorization of the titles was based on the musical element of style. The purpose was to compare the subjects development of any apparent categorization of the musical stimuli with categorization strategies that research suggests apply to verbal information. Results indicate that many subjects seemed to categorize the musical stimuli by applying verbal stylistic labels. Furthermore, the subjects' subsequent strategies for manipulating verbal labels show many similarities to, and some differences from, how subjects would be expected to process purely verbal information. Educational implications and ideas for future research are suggested.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bower, G. H. , & Hilgard, E. R. (1981). Theories of learning (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Cutietta, R. A. (1985). An analysis of musical hypotheses created by the 11-16 year old learner. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 84, 1–13.

Deutsch, D. (1982). The psychology of music. New York: Academic Press.

Dowling, W.J. (1986). Music cognition. New York: Academic Press.

Hodges, D. A. (Ed.). (1980). Handbook of music psychology. Lawrence, KS: National Association of Music Therapy.

Kintsch, W. (1982). Memory and cognition. Malabar, FL: R. E. Krieger.

Mandler, G. (1969). Input variables and output strategies in free recall of categorized words. American Journal of Psychology, 82, 531–539.

Pellegrino, J. W. , & Ingram, A. L. (1979). Processes, products, and measures of memory organization. In C. R. Puff (Ed.), Memory organization and structure (pp. 21–50). New York: Academic Press.

Radocy, R. E. , & Boyle, J. D. (1979). The psychological foundations of musical behavior. Springfield, IL: C. C. Thomas.

10.

Serafine, M. L. (1988). Music as cognition. New York: Columbia University Press.

11.

Sloboda, J. A. (1985). The musical mind. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

12.

Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Ed.), Organization of memory (pp. 381–403). New York: Academic Press.

13.

Wallace, W. P. , & Nappe, G. W. (1970). Subjective organization following constant input order in multitrial free recall. Psychonomic Science, 18, 115–117.

14.

Wood, G. (1972). Organizational processes in free recall. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Ed.), Organization of memory (pp. 49–91). New York: Academic Press.

15.

Zwink, C. (1989). Verbal categorization of holistically presented musical stimuli: Implications for cognitive categorization. Paper presented at the Ohio Music Educators Association Convention.