Nicholas Oram

Responsiveness of Western adults to pitch-distributional information in melodic sequences

Responsiveness of musically trained and untrained adults to pitch-distributional information in melodic contexts was assessed. In Experiment 1, melodic contexts were pure-tone sequences, generated from either a diatonic or one of four nondiatonic tonesets, in which pitch-distributional information was manipulated by variation of the relative frequency of occurrence of tones from the toneset. Both the assignment of relative frequency of occurrence to tones and the construction of the (fixed) temporal order of tones within the sequences contravened the conventions of western tonal music. A probe-tone technique was employed. Each presentation of a sequence was followed by a probe tone, one of the 12 chromatic notes within the octave. Listeners rated the goodness of musical fit of the probe tone to the sequence. Probe-tone ratings were significantly related to frequency of occurrence of the probe tone in the sequence for both trained and untrained listeners. In addition, probe-tone ratings decreased as the pitch distance between the probe tone and the final tone of the sequence increased. For musically trained listeners, probe-tone ratings for diatonic sequences tended also to reflect the influence of an internalized tonal schema. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the temporal location of tones in the sequences could not alone account for the effect of frequency of occurrence in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 tested musically untrained listeners under the conditions of Experiment 1, with the exception that the temporal order of tones in each sequence was randomized across trials. The effect of frequency of occurrence found in Experiment 1 was replicated and strengthened.

A comparison of the ability of 8-9-year-old children and adults to detect taste stimuli

Conflicting data exist in the literature regarding the maturity of the human sense of taste during childhood and if gender influences gustatory development. To investigate these 2 questions, taste detection thresholds for the 4 common tastants sucrose, sodium chloride, citric acid, and caffeine were established for 61 young adults and 68 children aged 8-9 years old, using a paired-comparison forced-choice procedure. No significant differences were found between the mean thresholds of women and men, or between those of female children and adults. In contrast, male children had significantly higher thresholds for all 4 tastants than adult females, for all tastants except caffeine than adult men, and for sucrose and sodium chloride than female children. It is concluded that the taste sensitivity of 8-9-year-old males, although well developed, has not fully matured, and that taste sensitivity is not affected by gender in young adults.

Analysis of taste mixtures by adults and children

Children at mid-childhood (8-9 years), have limited perceptual-attentional skills to analyze complex stimuli (Shepp, Barrett, & Kolbet, 1987), and little is known of their skills to analyze chemosensory stimuli. Accordingly, this study investigated the ability of adults and 8-9 year old children to perceive tastes in binary mixtures. In Experiment 1, subjects used a selective attention procedure to indicate whether sweet, salty, and sour tastes were present in stimuli consisting of sucrose (sweet), sodium chloride (salty), citric acid (sour), and all possible binary mixtures of these tastants. Adults correctly recognized the two tastes in all mixtures, whilst children recognized only one in each mixture. Children were successful in recognizing sweet in both sweet-containing mixtures and salty in the sodium chloride-citric acid mixture. In Experiment 2, subjects used a similar selective attention paradigm to assess the perceived intensity of the three tastes in the above single and two-component stimuli. Suppression of one or both components was recorded with most mixtures by both age groups. However, with the mixture sodium chloride-citric acid, only the children recorded suppression of sourness, whilst for adults only saltiness was suppressed. In neither mixture containing sourness did children report suppression of sweetness or saltiness. It is concluded that at mid-childhood humans have difficulty analyzing taste mixtures into their components, due to attentional and possibly gustatory shortcomings.

Taste response functions of adults and children using different rating scales

Abstract The ability of children to estimate the strength of suprathreshold taste stimuli has received minimal investigation, and there have been few attempts to compare their responses directly with those of adults. Accordingly, the present study investigated three rating procedures for establishing the sweetness response functions of 87 adults and 8–9-year old children for sucrose following training with the visual stimulus, length. Similar sweetness response functions were obtained for both subject groups using a category scale or magnitude estimation procedure, whilst the functions for adults and children were different using a hand-separation procedure. The similar sweetness response functions for adults and children obtained with two of the procedures suggest that the sense of taste has reached maturity for the perception of suprathreshold sucrose stimuli by mid-childhood.

The development of meat-eating habits during childhood in Australia.

The development of meat-eating habits of 999 Australian children between 1 and 16 years of age stratified across socioeconomic groups, was determined using a 4-day diary and measurement procedures to document intake. The results indicated that a stable pattern of meat-eating behaviour, as regards the frequency and type of meat eaten was established during the period 1-4 years of age and remained until 10-12 years for males and until at least 14-16 years for females. In contrast, the amount of meat consumed increased with age, the greatest increases occurring with adolescent males who ate the largest amounts of beef, chicken and pork. It is suggested that the early establishment of meat-eating habits may reflect a more general effect that may occur with other types of food.

Perception of pitch structure in pure‐tone melodic sequences

Musically naive subjects were tested in two experiments investigating the perception of pitch structure in pure‐tone sequences. Each sequence contained 20 successive samples from either a diatonic or a nondiatonic toneset of seven tones with probability of occurrence of each tone systematically varied. Sequences were presented in either of two frequency ranges (262–494 Hz, or 1047–1976 Hz). Frequency range was varied between subjects in experiment 1 and within subjects in experiment 2. On each trial, a sequence was followed by a probe tone, one of the 12 chromatic tones within the same octave as the sequence. Subjects rated the goodness‐of‐fit of the probe tone to the sequence. In both experiments, probe‐tone ratings were positively related to probability of occurrence of the probe tone in the sequence. Moreover, for sequences generated from diatonic tonesets and presented in the high‐frequency range, ratings also reflected the tonal hierarchy implicated by the key of the toneset. [Work supported by NSERC.]