Aesthetic Judgements and Musical Cognition: A Comparative Study in Samples of French and British Children and Adults

Abstract

In order to provide a better understanding of some cognitive mechanisms which might be behind the formation, development and evolution of musical taste, a juxtaposition of the results of two previous studies conducted by Sloboda in England, and Zenatti in France, was made. Both sets of experiments were run on children from the same age groups and on adults, involved the same experimental methods, and employed more or less comparable melodic and harmonic musical structures. There was a difference in the nature of judgements made, however; subjects were asked to indicate which structures were judged to be "correct" in Sloboda's experiments (involving an assessment of conformity to rules), and to be "pretty" in Zenatti's research (involving an expression of taste). Comparative analysis reveals that judgements expressed by children in both countries tend to be similar, supporting the hypothesis that the formation of musical taste rests at least in part on cognitive mechanisms. With some adults, the appreciation of the aesthetic aspect of musical structures remained distinct from judgements of "correctness", revealing the specificity and evolution of taste.

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References

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