Worlds apart? Testing the cultural distance hypothesis in music perception of Chinese and Western listeners

Mathias Klarlund; Elvira Brattico; Marcus Pearce; Yiyang Wu; Peter Vuust; Morten Overgaard; Yi Du

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105405

Worlds apart? Testing the cultural distance hypothesis in music perception of Chinese and Western listeners

Cognition. 2023 Jun:235:105405. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105405. Epub 2023 Feb 18.

Authors

Mathias Klarlund¹, Elvira Brattico², Marcus Pearce³, Yiyang Wu⁴, Peter Vuust⁵, Morten Overgaard⁶, Yi Du⁷

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark. Electronic address: mklarlund@clin.au.dk.
² Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy.
³ Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark; Music Cognition Lab, Queen Mary University of London, London, England, UK.
⁴ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁶ Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Dept of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁷ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China. Electronic address: duyi@psych.ac.cn.

PMID: 36807031
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105405

Abstract

According to the cultural distance hypothesis (CDH), individuals learn culture-specific statistical structures in music as internal stylistic models and use these models in predictive processing of music, with musical structures closer to their home culture being easier to predict. This cultural distance effect may be affected by domain-specific (musical ability) and domain-general individual characteristics (openness, implicit cultural bias). To test the CDH and its modulation by individual characteristics, we recruited Chinese and Western adults to categorize stylistically ambiguous and unambiguous Chinese and Western melodies by cultural origin. Categorization performance was better for unambiguous (low CD) than ambiguous melodies (high CD), and for in-culture melodies regardless of ambiguity for both groups, providing evidence for CDH. Musical ability, but not other traits, correlated positively with melody categorization, suggesting that musical ability refines internal stylistic models. Therefore, both cultures show musical enculturation in their home culture with a modulatory effect of individual musical ability.

Keywords: Cultural distance; Enculturation; Music perception; Predictive coding.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Auditory Perception*
East Asian People
Humans
Learning
Music*