This seminar is open to all NACS students.

Speaker: Mattson Ogg

Title: Musical Structure and Cognitive Control

Abstract: A recent proposal claims that evidence for shared resources in language and music processing reflects a common reliance on cognitive control mechanisms. However it remains to be shown that music processing alone can engage domain-general cognitive control. If the processing of harmonically unexpected chords draws on cognitive control, then a limited resource account would predict that a structurally unexpected chord would impair concurrent performance on the Stroop task (a classic index of cognitive control). Surprisingly, harmonically unexpected chords facilitated response times overall and did not interact with Stroop interference. Musical experience, while unrelated to the magnitude of Stroop interference, was also associated with faster response times overall (similar to previous findings from harmonic priming tasks). However, this advantage was accompanied by reduced response accuracy. Taken together, these data do not support the view that cognitive control underlies the processing of musical structure.