图1测试的曲调在关于旋律辨别的实验中,成年及婴儿参与者反复地听儿歌《小星星》的前几个音符。他们学会了在听到含有错误音符(图中框内)的变化曲调时做出反应。研究者用了很多不同的音色来演奏,使得音色不会是旋律辨别任务的可靠线索对音高差异的感知需要大脑处理复杂的声音。但值得注意的是,3个月大的、大脑发育尚不成熟的婴儿能够分辨出儿童歌曲《小星星》演奏中出现的一个错误音符。 Figure 1 Test tunes In experiments on melodic discrimination, adult and infant participants repeatedly hear the first few notes of their little song “Little Star.” They learned to react when they heard a melody that contained the wrong note (in the frame). The researchers used many different timbres to play, so that the timbre would not be a reliable clue to the task of melody identification. Perceptions of pitch differences required the brain to process complex sounds. However, it is noteworthy that a 3-month-old infant with an immature brain can recognize a wrong note that appears in the children’s song “Little Star”.