Not only musicians know major and minor: Categorical perception of major and minor in untrained ears across ages

Abstract

Diversified emotional responses are generally referred as the evidence of showing categorical perception of major and minor modes. Yet it is uncertain whether the categorical performance is independent to the emotion tagging. This study therefore adopted a direct measure with the proper controlled stimuli to reexamine the categorial nature of major and minor modes across ages. Results showed that except the group of male elderly, untrained participants in all three age groups performed better than chance in the categorisation task. Their above chance level performance might therefore suggests an implicit working of the conceptualisation of major and minor. Suggestion on hearing ability and item validity were also made so that the performance of elderly and the potential performance difference between sex can be further interpreted.