Working Memory
Melody Comparison Task
Also called: melody discrimination task, melodic discrimination, same-different melody task, transposed melody task, melodic contour and interval discrimination, melodic memory
Measure memory for melodies: two short tone melodies, same or different, with one note changing the contour or only an interval, in one key or transposed.
9-11 minUntimed
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Preview any test free after you sign up.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 29
- Evidence grade
- D
- Registered clinical studies
- 2
What it measures
Measures memory for short melodies. Participants hear two tone melodies, five notes each as standard, and say whether they are the same. When they differ, one note changes either the melody's ups and downs or only the size of its steps, and in half the pairs the second melody is moved to a new key.
Constructs
- Melodic memory
- Contour and interval processing
- Relative pitch
- Auditory short-term memory
Research uses
- Music cognition and musical training research
- Research on congenital amusia and pitch processing, at the group level
- Auditory memory across development and aging
How the paradigm works
The Melody Comparison Task measures short-term memory for melodies and separates two things a listener can hold: a melody's contour, its pattern of steps up and down, and its intervals, the exact size of each step. Each round plays two short melodies of pure tones, one after the other, and the participant answers whether the second is the same as the first (Dowling and Fujitani, 1971; Dowling, 1978). Every melody is generated by our code: five notes as standard, in a major key, starting on the keynote, each note one or two scale steps from the last and never repeated, about three notes a second, with 2 seconds of silence between the two melodies.
More about the paradigm
Half the pairs are the same. In the other half one note of the second melody differs: a turning point of the melody moves two or three scale steps, either away from its neighbors, which keeps every step up and down and changes two intervals (an interval change), or by the same number of steps past a neighbor, which reverses at least one step (a contour change). Both changes stay in the key. In half the pairs the second melody is in the same key; in the other half it is transposed, moved up 4 or down 3 semitones as in Dowling (1978), so every note is new and only the relations between notes can match. In Dowling and Fujitani's study, transposed melodies with the same contour but new intervals could hardly be told from exact transpositions, while a change of contour was easy to hear; in the same key both were easy. Edworthy (1985) found contour held best in short melodies.
The standard session has 48 pairs: in each key condition 12 the same, 6 with a contour change and 6 with an interval change, in a seeded order, after 4 practice pairs with feedback. Notes per melody (5 to 7) and the number of changed pairs of each kind (4 to 8) are settings. The test starts with the sound kit's loudness step and headphone check (Woods and colleagues, 2017); a failed check ends the test unless the study chooses to continue. About 9 to 11 minutes on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones, with headphones. The test needs normal hearing.
The main score is d prime for telling changed pairs from pairs that are the same. d prime for each kind of change and each key condition, the contour advantage after transposition and the cost of transposition are also reported. Scores are research measures of memory for melodies; they do not measure hearing and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Melody d-Primed'
- Sensitivity to a changed note over all pairs: z of the share of changed pairs answered Different minus z of the share of same pairs answered Different, both log-linear corrected.
- Higher is better
- Contour Change d-Primed'
- Pairs with a contour change against all pairs that are the same.
- Higher is better
- Interval Change d-Primed'
- Pairs with an interval change against all pairs that are the same.
- Higher is better
- Same-Key d-Primed'
- Changed pairs in the same key against same pairs in the same key.
- Higher is better
- Transposed d-Primed'
- Transposed changed pairs against transposed pairs that are the same.
- Higher is better
- Same-Key Contour d-Primed'
- Contour changes in the same key against same pairs in the same key.
- Higher is better
- Same-Key Interval d-Primed'
- Interval changes in the same key against same pairs in the same key.
- Higher is better
- Transposed Contour d-Primed'
- Transposed contour changes against transposed pairs that are the same.
- Higher is better
- Transposed Interval d-Primed'
- Transposed interval changes against transposed pairs that are the same.
- Higher is better
- Contour Advantage After Transpositiond'
- Transposed contour d-prime minus transposed interval d-prime.
- Positive values mean the contour was held better than the exact intervals
- Transposition Costd'
- Same-key d-prime minus transposed d-prime.
- Positive values mean a new key made changes harder to hear
- Response Criterionz
- Minus half the sum of the two z values behind d prime. Positive values mean a leaning to answer Same.
- Informational
- Changes Detected%
- Share of changed pairs answered Different.
- Higher is better
- False Alarms%
- Share of pairs that are the same answered Different.
- Lower is better
- Percent Correct%
- Answered pairs judged right.
- Higher is better
- Median Answer Timems
- Median time from the answer buttons starting to work, once the second melody has played, to the answer.
- Informational
- Pairs Answeredtrials
- Pairs with a scored answer.
- Fewer than planned is flagged for review
- Planned Pairstrials
- Pairs the session planned to play.
- Informational
- Anticipationscount
- Answers within 100 ms of the buttons starting to work. They are not scored.
- Informational
- Headphone Check Passed0/1
- 1 when the sound kit's headphone check passed (at least 5 of 6 right), 0 when it did not.
- 0 with no scores means the check ended the test; 0 with scores is flagged and gets no percentile
Use and evidence
29 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 31% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 305 of 395 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 6 |
| 2024 | 8 |
| 2023 | 6 |
| 2022 | 6 |
| 2021 | 3 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2019 | 9 |
| 2018 | 7 |
| 2017 | 11 |
| 2016 | 8 |
| 2015 | 10 |
| 2014 | 4 |
| 2013 | 4 |
| 2012 | 11 |
| 2011 | 10 |
| 2010 | 2 |
| 2009 | 0 |
| 2008 | 5 |
| 2007 | 2 |
| 2006 | 1 |
| 2005 | 1 |
| 2004 | 2 |
| 2003 | 0 |
| 2002 | 2 |
| 2001 | 0 |
| 2000 | 0 |
Use grade E
Fewer than 30 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade D
Little published measurement evidence found.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 1
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 13
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 2
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Melodies
- Five pure tones (standard; five to seven as a setting) in a major key drawn for each pair, starting on the keynote. Each note is one scale step from the last two times in three, otherwise two, up or down, never repeated.
- Timing
- Each note 300 ms with 30 ms between notes, and 2,000 ms of silence between the two melodies. Play starts each pair.
- Changes
- Half the pairs are the same. In the others one turning point of the second melody moves two or three scale steps: away from its neighbors, keeping every step up and down (an interval change), or past a neighbor, reversing at least one (a contour change). Both stay in the key.
- Keys
- Half the pairs stay in one key. In the other half the second melody moves up 4 or down 3 semitones, so only the relations between notes can match.
- Pairs
- 48 pairs (standard): in each key condition 12 the same, 6 with a contour change and 6 with an interval change, in a seeded order. 4 to 8 changed pairs of each kind as a setting.
- Answer
- Same or Different, by button, once the second melody has played. Untimed; an answer within 100 ms of the buttons working is an anticipation and is not scored.
- Practice
- Four pairs with feedback: one the same and one with a contour change in one key, then the same two transposed.
- Sound
- The loudness step and a headphone check come first; a failed check ends the test unless the study chooses to continue. Notes play at -6 dB re the loudness tone. Needs headphones and normal hearing.
- Score
- d prime for changed pairs against pairs that are the same, log-linear corrected, with d prime by kind of change and key, the contour advantage after transposition and the transposition cost.
Every melody is generated by our code from the session's seed; no melody comes from a published test or battery. Dowling and Fujitani changed every interval of a chromatic melody and took confidence ratings; this version changes one note of a major-key melody of pure tones and asks same or different. Scores are research measures and do not measure hearing.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: melody_discrimination_test from the scored run, one same-or-different answer per pair of melodies (chance 1 in 2). Accuracy significantly below chance invalidates and not above chance is flagged. One answer on 90% of pairs invalidates when accuracy is not above chance; half the pairs are the same. The answer buttons work only once the second melody has played, so answer times are not judged; an answer within 100 ms of that is an anticipation and is not scored. A failed headphone check that stopped the test invalidates, and one the study chose to continue past is flagged and withholds the percentile. A run short of its planned pairs is flagged.
Why these rules
Accuracy significantly below chance (one-sided exact test, p < .05) cannot come from guessing; it means the response mapping was reversed or the task was not followed (Slick, Sherman and Iverson 1999 treat below-chance forced-choice performance as definite response bias). Chance-level accuracy can be a real result in impaired participants, so it is only flagged. One option on at least 90% of answered trials, when the correct options are balanced and accuracy is not above chance, means the answers did not depend on the items (the task counterpart of long-string responding in surveys; Curran 2016). The answer can be decided while the second melody plays, so a quick answer once the buttons work is not a sign of clicking through. Woods and colleagues (2017) let only listeners who passed their headphone check go on to the task; a session that went on after a failed check may have been heard over loudspeakers.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| When the headphone check fails | Stop the test | Stop the test, Continue the test |
| Notes in each melody | 5 | 5 to 7 |
| Changed pairs of each kind | 6 | 4 to 8 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Needs headphones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Melody Comparison Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Dowling and Fujitani, 1971; Dowling, 1978), with the standard settings (when the headphone check fails: Stop the test; notes in each melody: 5; changed pairs of each kind: 6). The main score was melody d-prime (sensitivity to a changed note over all pairs: z of the share of changed pairs answered Different minus z of the share of same pairs answered Different, both log-linear corrected).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Dowling, W. J., & Fujitani, D. S. (1971). Contour, interval, and pitch recognition in memory for melodies. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 49(2B), 524-531. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1912382Same-or-different memory for five-note melodies 2 seconds apart, in one key or transposed: after transposition, contour carried the melody and exact intervals did not.
- Dowling, W. J. (1978). Scale and contour: Two components of a theory of memory for melodies. Psychological Review, 85(4), 341-354. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.85.4.341Five-note major-key melodies with steps of one or two scale steps, about three notes a second, and transpositions up 4 or down 3 semitones.
- Bartlett, J. C., & Dowling, W. J. (1980). Recognition of transposed melodies: A key-distance effect in developmental perspective. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 6(3), 501-515. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.6.3.501Changed melodies in near keys are harder to reject than in far keys.
- Edworthy, J. (1985). Interval and contour in melody processing. Music Perception, 2(3), 375-388. https://doi.org/10.2307/40285305Contour is held best in short melodies; intervals gain in longer ones.
- Foster, N. E. V., & Zatorre, R. J. (2010). A role for the intraparietal sulcus in transforming musical pitch information. Cerebral Cortex, 20(6), 1350-1359. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhp199Same-or-different judgments of melodies with one note changed, in the same key or transposed.
- Hautus, M. J. (1995). Corrections for extreme proportions and their biasing effects on estimated values of d'. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 27(1), 46-51. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203619The log-linear correction for d prime.
- Woods, K. J. P., Siegel, M. H., Traer, J., & McDermott, J. H. (2017). Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 79(7), 2064-2072. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1361-2The headphone check before the test.
Source papers
- Dowling WJ, Fujitani DS (1971). Contour, interval, and pitch recognition in memory for melodies. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 49(2B):524-531.N 49, Undergraduates
- Dowling WJ (1978). Scale and contour: Two components of a theory of memory for melodies. Psychological Review, 85(4):341-354.N 21, Adults
Questions
How long does the Melody Comparison Task take?
About 9 to 11 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Needs headphones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Melody d-Prime, Contour Change d-Prime, Interval Change d-Prime, Same-Key d-Prime, Transposed d-Prime, Same-Key Contour d-Prime, Same-Key Interval d-Prime, Transposed Contour d-Prime, Transposed Interval d-Prime, Contour Advantage After Transposition, Transposition Cost, Response Criterion, Changes Detected, False Alarms, Percent Correct, Median Answer Time, Pairs Answered, Planned Pairs, Anticipations and Headphone Check Passed. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Melody Comparison Task used in research?
29 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, down 31% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 305 of 395 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade E). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Melody Comparison Task have?
In the published research, 1 paper reports its test-retest reliability and 2 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade D in the ConductCognition test census).
Which settings can a researcher change?
When the headphone check fails (Stop the test, Continue the test), notes in each melody (5 to 7) and changed pairs of each kind (4 to 8). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
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