Thirty-six college music majors were asked to identify ascending intervals with a distractor tone either a major second or a perfect fourth below and preceding the first tone of the interval, a distractor tone either a major second or a perfect fourth above and following the second tone, and with no distractor (control condition). There was a tendency for responses to the distractor-before, major second condition to overestimate the target, and for responses in distractor-after conditions to underestimate. A “tonic effect” is proposed to explain these results.
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