Nathalie Ehrlé, Séverine Samson, Isabelle Peretz
In this article, we present norms for a standardized set of 144 melodic excerpts. The melodies have been standardized on four variables corresponding to familiarity, verbal evocations, musical categories (vocal or instrumental) and age of acquisition. For this purpose, estimations were obtained in 120 French university students. The results show that musical excerpts can be submitted to psychometric measures similar to normative measures obtained for other stimuli. Except for the age of acquisition which was only determined for a limited number of excepts, the other variables such as familiarity, musical category as well as verbal responses associated to each musical except were identified. The present results extend data obtained in a previous investigation with the same set of melodies infrench speaking subjects from Quebec by Peretz et her colleagues (1995). This study provides a standardized set of melodies available for research in the psychology of music.