The role of lyrics and melody in song recognition: Why is song recognition faster?

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to identify the role of lyrics and melody in song recognition. Experiment 1 (N = 30) investigated the ratings of familiarity, age of acquisition, retrievability of lyrics or melody, and happiness for 100 Japanese children's songs. In Experiment 2 (N = 31), a familiarity-judgment task was conducted involving three stimulus types - sung lyrics (SONG), spoken lyrics (LYRICS), and sung melody using the syllable/la/ (MELODY) - for two excerpts (beginning and middle locations). The participants were instructed to judge whether an excerpt sounded familiar as quickly as possible. The more familiar the songs, the easier could they be identified from the three stimulus types. SONG-response time (RT) was shorter than MELODY-RT for both beginning and middle, and than LYRICS-RT for the middle. The location effect emerged most prominently for LYRICS-RT. Our results suggest that interactively connected information of lyrics and melody may facilitate song recognition. Lyrics in the beginning might be an index only for certain, very familiar songs, whereas melody may play a facilitative role for song recognition regardless of location.