THE NEUROSCIENCES AND MUSIC III: DISORDERS AND PLASTICITY Similarity and Repetition An ERP Study on Musical Form Perception Christiane Neuhaus, Thomas R. Kn ¨ osche, and Angela D. Friederici Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany In this ERP study we investigate how consecutive phrase patterns in the musical form types AABB and ABAB are conjoined perceptually. An anterior N300 reflects recognition of motif similarity in adjacent (A-A) and nonadjacent (A-B-A) phrase patterns, indicating perceptual coherence between (similar) parts in linear order. A marginally significant late anterior negativity reflects the processing of the second B in ABAB. It probably reveals some global aspects of “structural integration” when nonadjacent parts are perceived in the context of the whole melody. Key words: musical form; structural hearing; pattern recognition; similarity; repetition; event-related potentials Introduction In his Ideen zu einer ‘Lehre von den Tonvorstellun- gen’ (Ideas for a “Study on the Imagination of Tone,” 1916), Hugo Riemann used the term Beziehendes Denken, which we tentatively trans- late as structural hearing . 1 It means “setting parts of the whole in relation to each other,” which is a (probably active) listening strategy to recon- struct the logical flow of a composition by con- joining musical patterns. When structural hearing refers to parts in linear order it means seeking coherence between adjacent or nonadjacent sections of the same melodic stratum. The con- stituent part most often referred to is the “mu- sical phrase,” and composers use several form- building principles such as repetition, variation, and contrast to combine these phrases to larger passages and complete works. 2 When structural hearing refers to parts in hi- erarchical order, the way of thinking is verti- cal. Musical constituents are super- and sub- Address for correspondence: Dr. Christiane Neuhaus, Max Planck In- stitute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Voice: +49 3425 8875 2516; fax: +49 3425 8875 2511. neuhaus@cbs.mpg.de ordinate to each other in that the same ba- sic features, such as strong metric accents or dominant-tonic relationships, exist on each hi- erarchical level in parallel, from the most reduc- tive level (Ursatz or deep structure) to the most elaborate level (Vordergrund or surface struc- ture). 3,4 Structural hearing , as used in the con- text here, should therefore be understood as a perceptual strategy referring to patterns and structural anchor points rather than to rules and musical syntax. In this study we try to answer two questions by experiment, using event-related potentials (ERPs) as the measuring method. First, can we test structural hearing empirically with a suitable paradigm? Second, which neural cor- relates may reflect these linear and/or hierar- chical aspects when processing similar and con- trasting musical phrases? For building musical structures, we use two types of musical form, AABB and ABAB. They are based on the elementary eight-bar musi- cal period, and the form-building principles are “similarity,” “contrast,” and “repetition.” In sections with equal marking, for example, AA, ABAB, interval size is similar and rhythm is exactly alike, whereas in sections with different The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1169: 485–489 (2009). doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04791.x c  2009 New York Academy of Sciences. 485