ABSTRACT
Schematization is a normal counterpart of any anticipation process. The emergent cues contain invariant material, which points them out as being the initiating tools for the categorization processes of new entries. This is organized on the basis of the generalization of the interplay between similarity and difference. The emergence of the cues is always the result of some insistence on their main features by literal or varied repetition. The re-reading of the cue abstraction model assumes that, in order to experience the form of a piece of music, the listener elaborates a mental schema of the work concerned, built on the progressive emergence of abstracted cues, a process broadly governed by the principle of the similarity and difference. The categorization process of the musical material is also established on the basis of exact or varied repetitions of the abstracted cues. A similar experiment was carried out later with 9- to 11-year-old children, musicians and non-musicians.
