Pitch content is an important component of song and speech. Previous studies have shown a pronounced advantage for imitation of sung pitch over spoken pitch. However, it is not clear to what extent matching of pitch in production depends on one’s intention to imitate pitch. We measured the effects of intention to imitate on matching of produced pitch in both vocal domains. Participants imitated pitch content in speech and song stimuli intentionally (“imitate the pitch”) and incidentally (“repeat the words”). Our results suggest that the song advantage exists independently of whether participants explicitly intend to imitate pitch. This result supports the notion that the song advantage reflects pitch salience in the stimulus. On the other hand, participants were more effective at suppressing the imitation of pitch for song than for speech. This second result suggests that it is easier to dissociate phonetic content from pitch in the context of song than in speech. Analyses of individual differences showed that intention to imitate pitch had larger effects for individuals who tended to match pitch overall in production, independent of intentions. Taken together, the results help to illuminate the psychological processes underlying intentional and automatic vocal imitation processes.

音高内容是歌曲和演讲的重要组成部分。先前的研究表明，模仿唱歌音高比口语音高有明显的优势。但是，生产中音高的匹配在多大程度上取决于模仿音高的意图尚不清楚。我们测量了模仿意图对两个声域中产生的音高匹配的影响。参与者有意（“模仿音高”）和偶然（“重复单词”）模仿语音和歌曲刺激中的音高内容。我们的研究结果表明，歌曲优势的存在与参与者是否明确打算模仿音高无关。这一结果支持了歌曲优势反映了刺激中音高显着性的观点。另一方面，参与者在抑制对歌曲音高的模仿方面比在语音方面更有效。第二个结果表明，在歌曲上下文中将语音内容与音高分离比在语音中更容易。对个体差异的分析表明，模仿音高的意图对那些倾向于在生产中整体匹配音高的个体产生更大的影响，而与意图无关。总之，这些结果有助于阐明有意和自动声音模仿过程背后的心理过程。