Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Hearing Science (Health Sciences and Professions)

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of structured musical training on various auditory and memory processes in persons with normal hearing, attention, and memory function at various stages of training and maturation. It is known that musical training influences cortical sound processing through learning-based processes, but also at the preattentive level within the brainstem. Such training strengthens processes in the auditory and motor domains, as well as central processes. This study investigated auditory memory abilities in individuals placed within high and low musical training categories using nonverbal auditory stimuli within listening tasks that stressed attention. Use of nonverbal sounds provided a control for performance characteristics influenced by linguistic knowledge while establishing whether musical training enhances a listener's ability to assemble incoming sound information into an accurate and meaningful mental representation of one's environment. Three experiments measuring auditory working memory capacity, the interplay between frequency discrimination and memory capacity, and pitch matching retention were evaluated. Three different age groups of children and a group of young adults, each split into subgroups based on musical training, participated. The outcomes indicate that both musical training and age influence performance for pitch perception, organization and memory tasks with adult-like performance identified by age 14.

Committee: Jeffrey DiGiovanni (Committee Chair); Dennis Ries (Committee Member); James Montgomery (Committee Member); Kamile Geist (Committee Member) Subjects: Audiology; Cognitive Psychology; Neurosciences

PHD, Kent State University, 2014, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

TERRI BROWN LENZO, PH.D., DECEMBER, 2014 MUSIC ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN PRESCHOOL SETTINGS: MUSIC EDUCATION TRAINING FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD GENERALISTS Dissertation Adviser: Dr. Craig Resta Preschool generalists are often responsible for leading musical activities despite the fact that they may not have received training. The online format showed promise for ameliorating training barriers such as time commitment, cultural misconceptions regarding music education, and self-efficacy for leading musical activities. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the effectiveness of an online training program for increasing preschool generalist self-efficacy for leading musical activities. This was research of the quasi-experimental genre in which a one-group pretest-posttest design was utilized. The researcher conducted four preschool music classes which were videotaped by an assistant. Selected recordings were combined with narrated PowerPoint presentations to create three separate video-training modules focused on teaching techniques for leading singing, instrumental, and movement activities. The modules were posted online and designed to allow unlimited asynchronous access for a two-week period. Using purposeful sampling methods, participants were recruited by contacting affiliates of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Snowball sampling was also employed. The sample (n = 26) included classroom educators working in child care centers and independent settings from all six regions of the United States. Data were collected via Qualtrics online survey service and analyzed with IBM SPSS. At an alpha level of .05, overall teacher self-efficacy for leading musical activities increased significantly (p = .005). Self-efficacy for leading specific singing, instrumental, and movement activities increased in 21 of 22 categories, and 14 of those findings were statistically significant. The sig (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Craig Resta Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Adult Education; Behavioral Sciences; Curricula; Early Childhood Education; Inservice Training; Instructional Design; Music; Music Education; Teacher Education; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 1994, Music Education

The purpose of this study was to gain more information about the relationships among harmonic complexity preference, musical training and experience, and music aptitude in high school music students. The specific problems of this study were as follows: (1) to determine the relationship between amount of musical training and experience and harmonic complexity preference, (2) to determine the relationship between tonal music aptitude and harmonic complexity preference, (3) to determine the relationship between rhythm music aptitude and harmonic complexity preference, and (4) to determine the relationship between composite (combined tonal and rhythm) music aptitude and harmonic complexity preference. The subjects were 106 high school music students from a suburban Cleveland, Ohio, high school. The subjects completed a researcher-designed harmonic complexity preference test (HCPT), Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA), which is an aptitude test, and a researcher-designed musical training and experience survey. To analyze the data, the researcher calculated the correlations between the survey scores and HCPT scores, AMMA tonal raw scores and HCPT scores, AMMA rhythm raw scores and HCPT score s, and AMMA composite scores and HCPT scores. Statistically significant relationships at the.05 level were found at the twelfth grade level in every relationship with the exception of AMMA tonal scores and HCPT scores. Statistically significant relationships at the.05 level were found at the eleventh grade level in every relationship. No statistically significant relationships were found at the tenth or ninth grade levels. In conclusion, students in twelfth grade with high rhythm music aptitude and composite (combined tonal and rhythm) aptitude preferred more harmonically complex music. In addition, students with more musical training and experience preferred more harmonically complex music. Students in eleventh grade with high tonal, rhythm, and composite (combined tonal and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Taggart (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2010, Psychology/Experimental

Musical rhythms vary in their complexity. However, how different factors affect the perceived complexity of a rhythm is relatively poorly understood. The primary aim of this thesis was to consider the contribution of three factors to the perceived complexity of a rhythm: (1) musical training, (2) whether or not individuals were asked to tap the beat of the rhythm at a preferred rate before making a complexity rating, and (3) tempo. Of additional interest was the extent to which previously proposed measures of rhythmic complexity can account for variations in perceived rhythmic complexity. In two experiments, participants listened to a set of monotone auditory rhythms and rated their complexity using a 6-point scale: 1-‘Very Simple" to 6-‘Very Complex". In Experiment 1, musically trained and untrained participants were instructed in separate blocks of trials to tap out a regular beat along with the rhythm or to simply listen to the rhythm before making their rating; all rhythms were presented at a fixed tempo (200 ms inter-onset-interval). In Experiment 2, a new sample of musically trained and untrained participants rated the complexity of the most and least complex rhythms in Experiment 1. These rhythms were presented at a range of tempi in both tapping-the-beat and listen-only conditions. Overall, musically untrained participants tended to judge rhythms to be more complex than musically trained participants. In Experiment 1, rhythmic complexity ratings made during the tapping-the-beat condition were significantly higher than ratings made during the listen-only condition; however this was only the case for musically untrained participants. In Experiment 2, rhythmic complexity ratings increased with increasing tempo. Differences in tapping variability as a function of musical training were found, although tempo did not affect participants' tapping variability in general. Three beat-based measures of rhythmic complexity made reliable and significant predictions of par (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: J. Devin McAuley PhD (Advisor); Verner P. Bingman PhD (Committee Member); Laura C. Dilley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Experiments; Music; Psychology