Sandra E Trehub
Biographic Data
| ID | 1464277 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sandra E Trehub |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sandra E |
| FAMILY NAME | Trehub |
| SIGNATURE | TREHUB S E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7940-1258 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Detection of pitch errors in well-known songs
We examined pitch-error detection in well-known songs sung with or without meaningful lyrics. In Experiment 1, adults heard the initial phrase of familiar songs sung with lyrics or repeating syllables ( la) and judged whether they heard an out-of-tune note. Half of the renditions had a single pitch error (50 or 100 cents); half were in tune. Listeners were poorer at pitch-error detection in songs with lyrics. In Experiment 2, within-note pitch fl…
Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures
Cross-Cultural Work in Music Cognition
Many foundational questions in the psychology of music require cross-cultural approaches, yet the vast majority of work in the field to date has been conducted with Western participants and Western music. For cross-cultural research to thrive, it will require collaboration between people from different disciplinary backgrounds, as well as strategies for overcoming differences in assumptions, methods, and terminology. This position paper surveys t…
Divergent Perspectives on Musical Knowledge, Expertise, and Science
I review two recent books on music, both inspired by cognitive neuroscience but differing in most other respects. Isabelle Peretz, an expert in the cognitive neuroscience of music, describes how we perceive and produce music, as reflected in neural and behavioral responsiveness. Her book is intended for general readers who are interested in music and curious about the science behind our musical nature-brains that are prepared for music and chang…
Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference
Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) as…
Familiar songs reduce infant distress
Parents commonly vocalize to infants to mitigate their distress, especially when holding them is not possible. Here we examined the relative efficacy of parents' speech and singing (familiar and unfamiliar songs) in alleviating the distress of 8- and 10-month-old infants ( n = 68 per age group). Parent-infant dyads participated in 3 trials of the Still Face procedure, featuring a 2-min Play Phase, a Still Face phase (parents immobile and unrespon…
Imitation of Non-Speech Oral Gestures by 8-Month-Old Infants
This study investigates the oral gestures of 8-month-old infants in response to audiovisual presentation of lip and tongue smacks. Infants exhibited more lip gestures than tongue gestures following adult lip smacks and more tongue gestures than lip gestures following adult tongue smacks. The findings, which are consistent with predictions from Articulatory Phonology, imply that 8-month-old infants are capable of producing goal-directed oral gestu…
Children's identification of questions from rising terminal pitch
Young children are slow to master conventional intonation patterns in their yes/no questions, which may stem from imperfect understanding of the links between terminal pitch contours and pragmatic intentions. In Experiment 1, five- to ten-year-old children and adults were required to judge utterances as questions or statements on the basis of intonation alone. Children eight years of age or younger performed above chance levels but less accuratel…
Singing Delays the Onset of Infant Distress
Much is known about the efficacy of infant‐directed ( ID ) speech and singing for capturing attention, but little is known about their role in regulating affect. In Experiment 1, infants 7–10 months of age listened to scripted recordings of ID speech, adult‐directed speech, or singing in an unfamiliar language (Turkish) until they met a criterion of distress based on negative facial expression. They listened to singing for roughly twice as long a…
Maternal Vocal Interactions with Infants: Reciprocal Visual Influences
The present study examined the influence of infant visual cues on maternal vocal and facial expressiveness while speaking or singing and the influence of maternal visual cues on infant attention. Experiment 1 asked whether mothers exhibit more vocal emotion when speaking and singing to infants in or out of view. Adults judged which of each pair of audio excerpts (in view, out of view) sounded more emotional. Face‐to‐face vocalizations were judged…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
In the beginning: A brief history of infant music perception
The study of infant music perception began in the 1970s—a time when young infants were considered incapable of holistic processing of auditory sequences. These limitations were reconsidered with the demonstration of infants’ configural processing of pitch and timing patterns, which presaged the vibrant field of study that unfolded over subsequent decades. The 1980s revealed the salience of melodic contour for infants as well as adult-like process…
Infants’ responsiveness to maternal speech and singing
Perceiving emotion in children's songs across age and culture 1
We explored children's and adults’ ability to perceive the emotional intent of sung performances by Canadian children who were 8–10 years old. Experiment 1 revealed that Canadian listeners were more accurate on happy renditions than on sad renditions of songs and on skilled (“good”) than on unskilled (“ordinary”) performances. Moreover, children's accuracy was greater than that of adults. In Experiment 2, Japanese children and adults with limited…
Psychology of music
Emotion and music in infancy
The infant's environment is filled with musical input. Mothers’ speech to infants is music-like, exhibiting a variety of musical features that reflect its emotional expressiveness. Although this speech has similar melodic contours across cultures, which reflect comparable expressive intentions, each mother has individually distinctive interval patterns or speech tunes. Mothers also sing to infants in an emotive manner, their repeated performances…
Mothers' and fathers' singing to infants
Mothers and fathers sang a song of their choice, once to their infant and once as if to their infant (simulated). The pitch of songs was higher and the tempo slower for infant-directed than for simulated versions. Listeners varying in child-care experience, musical background, and cultural origin reliably identified which of the two versions was infant-directed (Experiment 1). Identification accuracy was enhanced by musical training, knowledge of…
Children's discrimination of melodic intervals
Adults and 6-year-old children were tested on their discrimination of pure-tone sequences as a function ofthe simplicity ofthe frequency ratios between tones in the sequences. Listeners were required to detect either changes from intervals (combinations of 2 tones) with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios or changes from intervals with complex frequency ratios to those with simpler ratios. In Experiment I, adults performed b…
Children's songs to infant siblings: Parallels with speech
Children aged 2;11 to 8;3 sang informally, once in the presence of their infant sibling and once when the infant was out of view. Paired excerpts from 22 children were presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed excerpt in each pair. Listeners' accuracy was above chance levels but below what would be expected for mothers' singing in comparable contexts. Children altered their singing style in the infant's prese…
Observational measures of auditory sensitivity in early infancy
A rigorous observational procedure is described for estimating the detectability of auditory signals in the first few months of life. This procedure, a modification of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure, generates a bias-free estimate of auditory sensitivity and avoids some of the potential problems associated with alternative techniques
Duration illusion and auditory grouping in infancy
Bull, 1988). Infants ' detection of temporal increments to silent intervals between groups of tones was compared with their detection of comparable silent increments within groups of tones. Ss were presented with standard 6-tone sequences, with the fust 3 tones differing from the last 3 in harmonic structure, frequency, or intensity, and contrasting sequences with increments of 80 or 100 ms to the silent interval between the 3rd and 4th tone (XXX…
Children's understanding of referential messages produced by deaf and hearing speakers
Children 4 to 10 years of age were presented with referential messages that varied in message adequacy and speech quality and were required to choose the intended referent from a set of four alternatives. Follow ing feedback regarding their choice, they evaluated the message as good or bad and provided reasons for their evaluation. Half of the messages had sufficient information to define the referent uniquely; half had insufficient or ambiguous …
Perceptual grouping by infants and preschool children
Reception of mother's referential messages by deaf and hearing children
Hearing children 4, 6, and 8 years of age and deaf children 6 to 10 years of age who communicated orally (speech only) or bimodally (speech plus sign) participated in two receptive communication tasks. In Task 1, their mothers described, orally or bimodally, a designated picture from a set of four pictures so that the child could identify the intended referent from the four alternatives. In Task 2, the child was not given the stimulus set until t…
Effect of reinforcement on infants' performance in an auditory detection task
Centre for Research in Human DevelopmentUniversity of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, CanadaLocalization responses to octave-band noises with center frequencies at 400 and4000 Hz were obtained from 12-month-old infants, first without reinforcementand with a 5-sec response interval and then with reinforcement and an unlimitedresponse interval. The percentage of correct responses was substantially greaterin the reinforced than in the nonreinforced c…
Mothers' and fathers' singing to infants
Mothers and fathers sang a song of their choice, once to their infant and once as if to their infant (simulated). The pitch of songs was higher and the tempo slower for infant-directed than for simulated versions. Listeners varying in child-care experience, musical background, and cultural origin reliably identified which of the two versions was infant-directed (Experiment 1). Identification accuracy was enhanced by musical training, knowledge of…
Infants' sensitivity to vowel and tonal contrasts
McGill UniversityInfants 4 to 17 weeks of age were presented with sound which was con-tingent upon nonnutritive sucking. When the infants gave evidence ofsatiation to the initial stimulus, a contrasting sound was substituted. Sig-nificant response recovery was found when the stimuli were vowel con-trasts but was absent when the stimuli were tones differing in frequency
Auditory-linguistic sensitivity in early infancy
McGill UniversityThree investigations are reported which indicate that infants between 4 and17 weeks of age are able to detect some differences in sounds upon whichphonemic contrasts are based. Using a procedure where the presentation ofsound was contingent on nonnutritive sucking, it was found that the babieswere able to detect the difference between synthetic versions of b and p andbetween natural speech versions of b, p and d, t
Duration illusion and auditory grouping in infancy
Bull, 1988). Infants ' detection of temporal increments to silent intervals between groups of tones was compared with their detection of comparable silent increments within groups of tones. Ss were presented with standard 6-tone sequences, with the fust 3 tones differing from the last 3 in harmonic structure, frequency, or intensity, and contrasting sequences with increments of 80 or 100 ms to the silent interval between the 3rd and 4th tone (XXX…
Perceptual grouping by infants and preschool children
Acoustic regularities in infant-directed speech and song across cultures
Familiar songs reduce infant distress
Parents commonly vocalize to infants to mitigate their distress, especially when holding them is not possible. Here we examined the relative efficacy of parents' speech and singing (familiar and unfamiliar songs) in alleviating the distress of 8- and 10-month-old infants ( n = 68 per age group). Parent-infant dyads participated in 3 trials of the Still Face procedure, featuring a 2-min Play Phase, a Still Face phase (parents immobile and unrespon…
Children's discrimination of melodic intervals
Adults and 6-year-old children were tested on their discrimination of pure-tone sequences as a function ofthe simplicity ofthe frequency ratios between tones in the sequences. Listeners were required to detect either changes from intervals (combinations of 2 tones) with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios or changes from intervals with complex frequency ratios to those with simpler ratios. In Experiment I, adults performed b…
Maternal Vocal Interactions with Infants: Reciprocal Visual Influences
The present study examined the influence of infant visual cues on maternal vocal and facial expressiveness while speaking or singing and the influence of maternal visual cues on infant attention. Experiment 1 asked whether mothers exhibit more vocal emotion when speaking and singing to infants in or out of view. Adults judged which of each pair of audio excerpts (in view, out of view) sounded more emotional. Face‐to‐face vocalizations were judged…
Imitation of Non-Speech Oral Gestures by 8-Month-Old Infants
This study investigates the oral gestures of 8-month-old infants in response to audiovisual presentation of lip and tongue smacks. Infants exhibited more lip gestures than tongue gestures following adult lip smacks and more tongue gestures than lip gestures following adult tongue smacks. The findings, which are consistent with predictions from Articulatory Phonology, imply that 8-month-old infants are capable of producing goal-directed oral gestu…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
Observational measures of auditory sensitivity in early infancy
A rigorous observational procedure is described for estimating the detectability of auditory signals in the first few months of life. This procedure, a modification of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure, generates a bias-free estimate of auditory sensitivity and avoids some of the potential problems associated with alternative techniques
Effect of reinforcement on infants' performance in an auditory detection task
Centre for Research in Human DevelopmentUniversity of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, CanadaLocalization responses to octave-band noises with center frequencies at 400 and4000 Hz were obtained from 12-month-old infants, first without reinforcementand with a 5-sec response interval and then with reinforcement and an unlimitedresponse interval. The percentage of correct responses was substantially greaterin the reinforced than in the nonreinforced c…
Speech as reinforcing stimulation for infants
Auditory-linguistic sensitivity in early infancy
McGill UniversityThree investigations are reported which indicate that infants between 4 and17 weeks of age are able to detect some differences in sounds upon whichphonemic contrasts are based. Using a procedure where the presentation ofsound was contingent on nonnutritive sucking, it was found that the babieswere able to detect the difference between synthetic versions of b and p andbetween natural speech versions of b, p and d, t
Infants' sensitivity to vowel and tonal contrasts
McGill UniversityInfants 4 to 17 weeks of age were presented with sound which was con-tingent upon nonnutritive sucking. When the infants gave evidence ofsatiation to the initial stimulus, a contrasting sound was substituted. Sig-nificant response recovery was found when the stimuli were vowel con-trasts but was absent when the stimuli were tones differing in frequency
The problem of state in infant speech discrimination studies
Many scholars have drawn attention to the rapid fluctuations in state associated with early infancy. Since sensitivity to stimulation may vary from state to state, investigators of infant speech discrimination typically discard the data of subjects who display such alterations in arousal level. For example, Morse (1972) discarded 90% of his subjects largely because of state change as assessed by behavioral indices. (One wonders whether more sensi…
Speech as reinforcing stimulation for infants
Effect of reinforcement on infants' performance in an auditory detection task
Centre for Research in Human DevelopmentUniversity of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, CanadaLocalization responses to octave-band noises with center frequencies at 400 and4000 Hz were obtained from 12-month-old infants, first without reinforcementand with a 5-sec response interval and then with reinforcement and an unlimitedresponse interval. The percentage of correct responses was substantially greaterin the reinforced than in the nonreinforced c…
Children's understanding of referential messages produced by deaf and hearing speakers
Children 4 to 10 years of age were presented with referential messages that varied in message adequacy and speech quality and were required to choose the intended referent from a set of four alternatives. Follow ing feedback regarding their choice, they evaluated the message as good or bad and provided reasons for their evaluation. Half of the messages had sufficient information to define the referent uniquely; half had insufficient or ambiguous …
Perceptual grouping by infants and preschool children
Reception of mother's referential messages by deaf and hearing children
Hearing children 4, 6, and 8 years of age and deaf children 6 to 10 years of age who communicated orally (speech only) or bimodally (speech plus sign) participated in two receptive communication tasks. In Task 1, their mothers described, orally or bimodally, a designated picture from a set of four pictures so that the child could identify the intended referent from the four alternatives. In Task 2, the child was not given the stimulus set until t…
Duration illusion and auditory grouping in infancy
Bull, 1988). Infants ' detection of temporal increments to silent intervals between groups of tones was compared with their detection of comparable silent increments within groups of tones. Ss were presented with standard 6-tone sequences, with the fust 3 tones differing from the last 3 in harmonic structure, frequency, or intensity, and contrasting sequences with increments of 80 or 100 ms to the silent interval between the 3rd and 4th tone (XXX…
Observational measures of auditory sensitivity in early infancy
A rigorous observational procedure is described for estimating the detectability of auditory signals in the first few months of life. This procedure, a modification of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure, generates a bias-free estimate of auditory sensitivity and avoids some of the potential problems associated with alternative techniques
Children's songs to infant siblings: Parallels with speech
Children aged 2;11 to 8;3 sang informally, once in the presence of their infant sibling and once when the infant was out of view. Paired excerpts from 22 children were presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed excerpt in each pair. Listeners' accuracy was above chance levels but below what would be expected for mothers' singing in comparable contexts. Children altered their singing style in the infant's prese…
Children's discrimination of melodic intervals
Adults and 6-year-old children were tested on their discrimination of pure-tone sequences as a function ofthe simplicity ofthe frequency ratios between tones in the sequences. Listeners were required to detect either changes from intervals (combinations of 2 tones) with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios or changes from intervals with complex frequency ratios to those with simpler ratios. In Experiment I, adults performed b…
Mothers' and fathers' singing to infants
Mothers and fathers sang a song of their choice, once to their infant and once as if to their infant (simulated). The pitch of songs was higher and the tempo slower for infant-directed than for simulated versions. Listeners varying in child-care experience, musical background, and cultural origin reliably identified which of the two versions was infant-directed (Experiment 1). Identification accuracy was enhanced by musical training, knowledge of…
Psychology of music
Emotion and music in infancy
The infant's environment is filled with musical input. Mothers’ speech to infants is music-like, exhibiting a variety of musical features that reflect its emotional expressiveness. Although this speech has similar melodic contours across cultures, which reflect comparable expressive intentions, each mother has individually distinctive interval patterns or speech tunes. Mothers also sing to infants in an emotive manner, their repeated performances…
Infants’ responsiveness to maternal speech and singing
Perceiving emotion in children's songs across age and culture 1
We explored children's and adults’ ability to perceive the emotional intent of sung performances by Canadian children who were 8–10 years old. Experiment 1 revealed that Canadian listeners were more accurate on happy renditions than on sad renditions of songs and on skilled (“good”) than on unskilled (“ordinary”) performances. Moreover, children's accuracy was greater than that of adults. In Experiment 2, Japanese children and adults with limited…
In the beginning: A brief history of infant music perception
The study of infant music perception began in the 1970s—a time when young infants were considered incapable of holistic processing of auditory sequences. These limitations were reconsidered with the demonstration of infants’ configural processing of pitch and timing patterns, which presaged the vibrant field of study that unfolded over subsequent decades. The 1980s revealed the salience of melodic contour for infants as well as adult-like process…
Maternal Vocal Interactions with Infants: Reciprocal Visual Influences
The present study examined the influence of infant visual cues on maternal vocal and facial expressiveness while speaking or singing and the influence of maternal visual cues on infant attention. Experiment 1 asked whether mothers exhibit more vocal emotion when speaking and singing to infants in or out of view. Adults judged which of each pair of audio excerpts (in view, out of view) sounded more emotional. Face‐to‐face vocalizations were judged…
Enhanced processing of vocal melodies in childhood
Music cognition is typically studied with instrumental stimuli. Adults remember melodies better, however, when they are presented in a biologically significant timbre (i.e., the human voice) than in various instrumental timbres (Weiss, Trehub, & Schellenberg, 2012). We examined the impact of vocal timbre on children's processing of melodies. In Study 1, 9- to 11-year-olds listened to 16 unfamiliar folk melodies (4 each of voice, piano, banjo, or …
Children's identification of questions from rising terminal pitch
Young children are slow to master conventional intonation patterns in their yes/no questions, which may stem from imperfect understanding of the links between terminal pitch contours and pragmatic intentions. In Experiment 1, five- to ten-year-old children and adults were required to judge utterances as questions or statements on the basis of intonation alone. Children eight years of age or younger performed above chance levels but less accuratel…
Singing Delays the Onset of Infant Distress
Much is known about the efficacy of infant‐directed ( ID ) speech and singing for capturing attention, but little is known about their role in regulating affect. In Experiment 1, infants 7–10 months of age listened to scripted recordings of ID speech, adult‐directed speech, or singing in an unfamiliar language (Turkish) until they met a criterion of distress based on negative facial expression. They listened to singing for roughly twice as long a…
Imitation of Non-Speech Oral Gestures by 8-Month-Old Infants
This study investigates the oral gestures of 8-month-old infants in response to audiovisual presentation of lip and tongue smacks. Infants exhibited more lip gestures than tongue gestures following adult lip smacks and more tongue gestures than lip gestures following adult tongue smacks. The findings, which are consistent with predictions from Articulatory Phonology, imply that 8-month-old infants are capable of producing goal-directed oral gestu…
Cross-Cultural Work in Music Cognition
Many foundational questions in the psychology of music require cross-cultural approaches, yet the vast majority of work in the field to date has been conducted with Western participants and Western music. For cross-cultural research to thrive, it will require collaboration between people from different disciplinary backgrounds, as well as strategies for overcoming differences in assumptions, methods, and terminology. This position paper surveys t…
Divergent Perspectives on Musical Knowledge, Expertise, and Science
I review two recent books on music, both inspired by cognitive neuroscience but differing in most other respects. Isabelle Peretz, an expert in the cognitive neuroscience of music, describes how we perceive and produce music, as reflected in neural and behavioral responsiveness. Her book is intended for general readers who are interested in music and curious about the science behind our musical nature-brains that are prepared for music and chang…
Psychology (29 works) · Developmental psychology (23 works) · Audiology (15 works) · Neuroscience and Music Perception (15 works) · Cognitive psychology (13 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Communication (10 works) · Infant Health and Development (10 works) · Language Development and Disorders (9 works) · Linguistics (9 works)