We asked a group of musically naı¨ve participants to perform a pitch comparison task, a different group of musically naı¨ve participants and a group of musicians to perform a musical instrument identification task on sounds having different pitch. A SMARC effect (i.e. high-frequency pitches favouring up responses and low-frequencies pitches favouring down responses) was present both when pitch was task relevant, and when it was task irrelevant. Moreover, when pitch height was task irrelevant, a horizontal mapping of pitches appeared for musicians only. In conclusion, we found that a representational dimension (pitch height) influences performance with vertically aligned responses irrespective of its relevance to the task. This suggests that our … Continue reading Elena Rusconia, Bonnie Kwana, Bruno L. Giordanob, Carlo Umilta, Brian Butterwortha