What Mediates Infants' and Adults' Superior Processing of the Major over the Augmented Triad?

In this paper, the claim that the major triad has special status for infant as well as adult listeners is evaluated. In Experiment 1, infants and adults were required to detect a downward semitone change in a fivenote melody based on the major triad and in another five-note melody based on the augmented triad. Both infants and adults performed significantly better on the major triad melody. In Experiment 2, infants and adults were evaluated on …