Five- and 9-years-olds were presented a 9-note melody and asked to select the line drawing that best depicted the melodic contour, or the sequential pattern of rising and falling pitches. Melodies varied in tonality and contour complexity. Tonal melodies contained only diatonic notes, whereas atonal melodies also included some nondiatonic notes.
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Morrongiello et al. (1990) studied this question.