Absolute Pitch Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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- Music, Perception, Absolute Pitch
- by Elena Kowalsky and +1
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- Genetics, Music, Education, Family
- by Laurent Mottron
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Executive Function, Cognitive Flexibility

This article addresses the tuning from an objective viewpoint (mathematical) and subjective (psychoacoustic) to study auditory perception in humans. To set studio parameters 3 different tuning systems based on the world standard A 440 Hz are evaluated. The other 2 are 430 Hz and 450 Hz. The development is based on the scale of western music: C, D, E, F, G, A and B (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and si).

- by Daniel Naranjo
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- Music, Absolute Pitch, Harmonic / Pitch Perception, Pitch

This chapter examines human sensitivity to pitch relations and the musical scales that help us to organize these relations. Tuning systems – the means by which scales and pitch relations are created and maintained within a given musical tradition – are also discussed. Questions addressed in this chapter include: How are pitch intervals processed by the auditory system? Do certain intervals have a special perceptual status? What is the relation between intervals formed by pitches sounded sequentially and those formed by pitches sounded simultaneously? Why is most music organized around scales? Are there similarities in the scales used in different musical systems across cultures? Is there an optimal tuning system?

- by Bill Thompson
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- Acoustics, Music, Music Education, Musicology
- by Alexander J. B. Hampton
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- Aesthetics, Romanticism, Philosophy and Religion, Absolute Pitch

The pattern of acquisition of speech- and music-related skills during early stages of human infancy provides insight into the origins of language and music. Indiscriminate until shortly after birth, babies start gradually developing acoustic features in their vocalizations, as well as accompanying behaviors that make it possible to distinguish their attempts to speak from their attempts to sing. Comparative analysis of tonal organization of children's original (non-imitative) vocalizations in their developmental succession throughout the first 3 years of life casts light on several important acoustic features. These features play an important role in the separation of music from verbal skills and shaping the primordial music system the infant uses to address his/her musical needs.
Much of the existing scholarship commits a fundamental error by interpreting the earliest forms of human speech and music in terms of "adult" state of their mastery, regarding children's communication as a sort of "defective" imitation of adults' models. Moreover, such models are significantly biased towards Western classical music and Indo-European languages, which despite their cultural importance in the modern world, nevertheless, constitute only a small fraction of typology of tonal musical and phonological verbal organization. A much more comprehensive approach towards children's music and speech has been developed by Lev Vygotsky and his circle: Alexander Luria, Aleksei Leontyev, Alexander Zaporozhets, Peter Galperin, as well as Boris Teplov. They and their followers regarded children's speech and music as reflecting a child's own peculiar method of thinking. The Vygotskian approach shares much in common with that of Piaget and the neo-Piagetians, but offers an alternative framework for explanation of the dichotomy between language and music—based on the methodology of intonation theory by Boleslav Yavorsky and Boris Asafyev. This theory was implemented in the state program of obligatory education within all territories of the former USSR; it had passed deep scrutiny throughout many years of administration over a massive population, which resulted in creation of a special discipline of ear development that theoretically and practically dealt with the development of "musical hearing" as distinguished from "verbal hearing" throughout childhood. Unfortunately, much of this literature is unknown to Western developmental specialists. This chapter covers this gap, familiarizing English-speaking scholars with the unique perspective on early musical and verbal development by Soviet and modern Russian ear-training specialists, with special attention to the issue of absolute pitch.
Advances in the methodology of intonational analysis made possible an adequate description and deeper understanding of the principles that govern tonal organization of non-Western types of music—including those that are based on timbre rather than pitch. This approach can be effectively applied to the analysis of both, ethnological and developmental data—to identify the common patterns of ontogenetic and phylogenetic development.

- by Aleksey Nikolsky
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- Ethnomusicology, Modality, Tonal theory, Speech & Hearing Sciences
- by Robert Rynasiewicz
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- Philosophy of Physics, Spacetime Studies, Space, Descartes

Absolute pitch (AP), the ability to identify a musical pitch without a reference, has been examined behaviorally in numerous studies for more than a century, yet only a few studies have examined the neuroanatomical correlates of AP. Here, we used MRI and diffusion tensor imaging to investigate structural differences in brains of musicians with and without AP, by means of whole-brain vertex-wise cortical thickness (CT) analysis and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis. APs displayed increased CT in a number of areas including the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the right supramarginal gyrus. Furthermore, we found higher fractional anisotropy in APs within the path of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the uncinate fasciculus, and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus. The findings in gray matter support previous studies indicating an increased left lateralized posterior STG in APs, yet they differ from previous findings of thinner cortex for a number of areas in APs. Finally, we found a relation between the whitematter results and the CT in the right parahippocampal gyrus. In this study, we present novel findings in AP research that may have implications for the understanding of the neuroanatomical underpinnings of AP ability.

- by Peter Vuust
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- Cognitive Science, Music, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging

O presente Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso de graduação em Licenciatura em Música tem como objetivo dialogar a respeito da natureza do ouvido absoluto - habilidade de nomeação de alturas sem referência externa -, sobre a sua relevância para a musicalidade e a possibilidade dessa habilidade ser desenvolvida por qualquer músico, através do contato sistemático e direcionado com uma metodologia que se propõe a desenvolvê-lo. A proposta é desvelar a polêmica que existe entre os educadores musicais sobre a natureza genética do ouvido absoluto ou a possibilidade dessa habilidade poder ser desenvolvida através de uma sistemática educação musical, treino e aprendizado, formal ou informal. Foi feita uma análise crítica e aplicação prática do método de David Lucas Burge (1981), que se propõe a desenvolver o ouvido absoluto em qualquer músico que o estude e siga. Através de um colaborador que se dispôs a seguir o método por um período de tempo, foram analisadas as melhoras em sua percepção musical em função do método. Também será abordada a relação entre o ouvido absoluto e a prática musical do portador da habilidade, as implicações de ser um portador e como isso afeta sua vida musical, comparando essa habilidade com a do ouvido relativo e como esse se relaciona com o ouvido absoluto.

- by Paulo Jeovani
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- Absolute Pitch, Perfect Pitch

Мозг оперирует временн ми объектами. Говоря о развитии чувства музыкального ритма у детей, необходимо помнить о том, что нет «музыкального ритма вообще», но есть ритм применительно к той или иной музыкальной культуре. Современный профессионально обученный академический музыкант заблуждается, если думает, что адекватно понимает ритм музыки ренессанса или даже раннего барокко. Тем более за пределами его понимания остаётся ритмическая организация раги, макама или различных африканских музыкальных культур, что, впрочем, очевидно.

- by Valeri Brainin
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- Music Education, Rhythm, Child Development, Teacher Training

When a musical tone is sounded, most listeners are unable to identify its pitch by name. Those listeners who can identify pitches are said to have absolute pitch perception (AP). A limited subset of musicians possesses AP, and it has been debated whether musicians’ AP interferes with their ability to perceive tonal relationships between pitches, or relative pitch (RP). The present study tested musicians’ discrimination of relative pitch categories, or intervals, by placing absolute pitch values in conflict with relative pitch categories. AP listeners perceived intervals categorically, and their judgments were not affected by absolute pitch values. These results indicate that AP listeners do not infer interval identities from the absolute values between tones, and that RP categories are salient musical concepts in both RP and AP musicianship.

- by Diana Ross
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- Psychology, Music Perception, Absolute Pitch
- by Robert Rynasiewicz
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- Philosophy of Physics, Spacetime Studies, Space, Relative

Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify pitches without a reference tone. The related phenomenon of (passive) "absolute tonality" (e. g., is the ability to discriminate between the original key of a musical piece and exact transpositions of it. Absolute tonality seems to be more widespread than traditionally assumed. Generally, all-or-none models of absolute pitch are increasingly being replaced by a continuum view.

- by Bartosz Gula
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- Absolute Pitch, Effect size, Pitch Perception, High School Student

Background: Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify or produce isolated musical tones. It is evident primarily among individuals who started music lessons in early childhood. Because AP requires memory for specific pitches as well as learned associations with verbal labels (i.e., note names), it represents a unique opportunity to study interactions in memory between linguistic and nonlinguistic information. One untested hypothesis is that the pitch of voices may be difficult for AP possessors to identify. A musician's first instrument may also affect performance and extend the sensitive period for acquiring accurate AP. Methods/Principal Findings: A large sample of AP possessors was recruited on-line. Participants were required to identity test tones presented in four different timbres: piano, pure tone, natural (sung) voice, and synthesized voice. Note-naming accuracy was better for non-vocal (piano and pure tones) than for vocal (natural and synthesized voices) test tones. This difference could not be attributed solely to vibrato (pitch variation), which was more pronounced in the natural voice than in the synthesized voice. Although starting music lessons by age 7 was associated with enhanced note-naming accuracy, equivalent abilities were evident among listeners who started music lessons on piano at a later age. Conclusions/Significance: Because the human voice is inextricably linked to language and meaning, it may be processed automatically by voice-specific mechanisms that interfere with note naming among AP possessors. Lessons on piano or other fixed-pitch instruments appear to enhance AP abilities and to extend the sensitive period for exposure to music in order to develop accurate AP.

- by Glenn Schellenberg
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- Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Music

In five experiments, we investigated the speed of pitch resolution in a musical context. In experiments 1-3, listeners were presented an incomplete scale ͑doh, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti͒ and then a probe tone. Listeners were instructed to make a rapid key-press response to probe tones that were relatively proximal in pitch to the last note of the scale ͑valid trials͒, and to ignore other probe tones ͑invalid trials͒. Reaction times were slower if the pitch of the probe tone was dissonant with the expected pitch ͑i.e., the completion of the scale, or doh͒ or if the probe tone was nondiatonic to the key implied by the scale. In experiments 4 and 5, listeners were presented a two-octave incomplete arpeggio, and then a probe tone. In this case, listeners were asked to make a rapid key-press response to probe tones that were relatively distant in pitch from the last note of the arpeggio. Under these conditions, registral direction and pitch proximity were the dominant influences on reaction time. Results are discussed in view of research on auditory attention and models of musical pitch.

- by Bill Thompson
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- Psychology, Music, Perception, Auditory Perception

Pitch perception is fundamental to melody in music and prosody in speech. Unlike many animals, the vast majority of human adults store melodic information primarily in terms of relative not absolute pitch, and readily recognize a melody whether rendered in a high or a low pitch range. We show that at 6 months infants are also primarily relative pitch processors. Infants familiarized with a melody for 7 days preferred, on the eighth day, to listen to a novel melody in comparison to the familiarized one, regardless of whether the melodies at test were presented at the same pitch as during familiarization or transposed up or down by a perfect fifth (7/12th of an octave) or a tritone (1/2 octave). On the other hand, infants showed no preference for a transposed over original-pitch version of the familiarized melody, indicating that either they did not remember the absolute pitch, or it was not as salient to them as the relative pitch. q 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

- by JUdy Plantinga and +1
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- Music, Cognitive development, Auditory Perception, Cognition
- by Elena Kowalsky
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- Genetics, Music, Music Education, Early Childhood
- by E. Marvin
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- Genetics, Music, Music Education, Early Childhood

Following publication of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, evidence has accumulated for the influence of language experience on perception. There are thousands of languages in the world which make use of pitch patterns to construct words much as vowels and consonants are used, among which Mandarin (a.k.a. Putonghua) is a typical tone language. This study examines the effect of language experience (tone language experience vs. nontone language experience) on non-linguistic pitch perception. First, we show a significantly higher prevalence of absolute pitch among native tone-language-speaking music students than among nontone-language-speaking music students. Moreover, we show that language experience shapes the perception of tone sweeps, extending the influence of language prototypes from the linguistic domain to the nonlinguistic domain. Taken together, these results demonstrate that language experience affects auditory perception, and so provide evidence for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the auditory modality.

- by Diana Deutsch and +1
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- Music, Absolute Pitch

The present study used functional magnetic resonance to examine the cerebral activity pattern associated with musical perception in musicians and non-musicians. Musicians showed left dominant secondary auditory areas in the temporal cortex and the left posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during a passive music listening task, whereas non-musicians demonstrated right dominant secondary auditory areas during the same task. A significant difference in the degree of activation between musicians and nonmusicians was noted in the bilateral planum temporale and the left posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The degree of activation of the left planum temporale correlated well with the age at which the person had begun musical training. Furthermore, the degree of activation in the left posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left planum temporale correlated significantly with absolute pitch ability. The results indicated distinct neural activity in the auditory association areas and the prefrontal cortex of trained musicians. We suggest that such activity is associated with absolute pitch ability and the use-dependent functional reorganization produced by the early commencement of long-term training.

- by Hiroshi Matsuda and +1
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- Cognitive Science, Music, Perception, Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- by Marisa Hoeschele and +1
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- Psychology, Acoustics, Perception, Research Methodology
- by Diana Deutsch
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- Psychology, Music, Perception, Absolute Pitch

Abstract: The objective of this research was to assess the prevalence of absolute pitch among undergraduate students
of Music in São Paulo and Brasília and to suggest a categorization of different types of absolute pitch. This study surveyed 448 students of four Brazilian universities. 24 of the students (5.35%) declared to possess absolute pitch. The study of this ability can shed light into the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of this cognitive trait and help to improve current
methods of teaching ear training.
Keywords: Absolute pitch, Prevalence, Musical Perception.

- by Nayana Di Giuseppe Germano
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- Absolute Pitch

Musical melodies are recognized on the basis of pitch and temporal relations between consecutive tones. Although some previous evidence (e.g., Saffran & Griepentrog, 2001) points to an absolute-to-relative developmental shift in listeners' perception of pitch, other evidence (e.g., Plantinga & Trainor, 2005; Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003) suggests that both absolute-and relative-pitch processing are evident among listeners of all ages (infants, children, and adults). We attempted to resolve this apparent discrepancy by testing adults as well as children 5-12 years of age. On each trial, listeners rated how similar or how different 2 melodies sounded. The melodies were identical, transposed (all tones shifted in pitch by the same amount), different (same tones reordered, changing pitch relations between successive tones), or transposed and different. Listeners of all ages were sensitive to both changes, but younger listeners attended selectively to transpositions as a source of perceived differences. With increasing age, melodic differences played an increasingly important role, whereas transpositions became less relevant.

- by Glenn Schellenberg
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- Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Music, Cognitive development

Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify or produce a given pitch without a reference. This study examines the stability of pitch labeling accuracy in a broad sample of AP possessors when natural complex tones are compared to modified sound structures (slightly out-of-tune pitches, sounds with missing fundamentals, and pure tones). A passive listening test with single tones was developed (Tallinn Test of Absolute Pitch, TTAP), with 150 items selected, representing 60 synthetic instrumental tones (violin, clarinet, and trumpet) in different octave ranges and dynamics, and 90 electronically modified sounds, each presented in three different octave ranges. Additional information was collected, regarding handedness, start of instrumental instruction, educational status, occurrence of AP in the family, and associations with processing pitch recognition. Results showed a clear decrease of pitch recognition accuracy between natural complex sounds and pure sine tones. A significant main effect on TTAP scores was found for early starts of instrumental instruction. The findings are discussed in the context of the nature-nurture debate (genetic vs environmental factors), as well as the implications of genetic and memory aspects of pitch recognition.

- by Wilfried Gruhn and +2
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- Empirical Musicology, Absolute Pitch
- by Alyefi Asrar
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- Information Technology, Disability Studies, Venture Capital, Absolute Pitch

The natural variability of pitch naming ability in the population (known as absolute pitch or AP) provides an ideal method for investigating individual differences in pitch processing and auditory knowledge formation and representation. We have demonstrated the involvement of different cognitive processes in AP ability that reflects varying skill expertise in the presence of similar early age of onset of music tuition. These processes were related to different regions of brain activity, including those involved in pitch working memory (right prefrontal cortex) and the long-term representation of pitch (superior temporal gyrus). They reflected expertise through the use of context dependent pitch cues and the level of automaticity of pitch naming. They impart functional significance to structural asymmetry differences in the planum temporale of musicians and establish a neurobiological basis for an AP template. More generally, they indicate variability of knowledge representation in the presence of environmental fostering of early cognitive development that translates to differences in cognitive ability.

- by Dean Lusher
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- Cognitive Science, Music, Perception, Cognitive development

The perceptual-cognitive mechanisms and neural correlates of Absolute Pitch (AP) are not fully understood. The aim of this fMRI study was to examine the neural network underlying AP using a pitch memory experiment and contrasting two... more

- by Nadine Gaab
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- Cognitive Science, Music, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Working Memory

■ Connectivity in the human brain has received increased scientific interest in recent years. Although connection disorders can affect perception, production, learning, and memory, few studies have associated brain connectivity with graded variations in human behavior, especially among normal individuals. One group of normal individuals who possess unique characteristics in both behavior and brain structure is absolute pitch (AP) musicians, who can name the appropriate pitch class of any given tone without a reference. Using diffusion tensor imaging and tractography, we observed hyperconnectivity in bilateral superior temporal lobe structures linked to AP possession. Furthermore, volume of tracts connecting left superior temporal gyrus to left middle temporal gyrus predicted AP performance. These findings extend previous reports of exaggerated temporal lobe asymmetry, may explain the higher incidence of AP in developmental disorders, and may provide a model for understanding the heightened connectivity that is thought to underlie savant skills and cases of exceptional creativity. ■

- by Gottfried Schlaug and +1
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Music, Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, characterised by deficits in socialisation and communication, with repetitive and stereotyped behaviours. Whilst intellectual and language impairment is observed in a significant proportion of diagnosed individuals, the disorder is also strongly associated with the presence of highly developed, idiosyncratic, or savant skills. We tested identification of fundamental pitch frequencies in complex tones, sine tones and words in AC, an intellectually able man with autism and absolute pitch (AP) and a group of healthy controls with self-reported AP. The analysis showed that AC’s naming of speech pitch was highly superior in comparison to controls. The results suggest that explicit access to perceptual information in speech is retained to a significantly higher degree in autism.

- by Pamela Heaton and +2
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- Autism, Absolute Pitch

Relative pitch is the ability to identify intervals between pitches, whereas absolute pitch is the less common ability to identify and reproduce musical pitches without reference to other pitches. This study utilized an auditory-visual Stroop test to investigate the automaticity of absolute and relative pitch. Absolute and relative pitch possessors simultaneously heard a piano tone and viewed a music note in treble clef on a computer screen. The piano tone and viewed note were either congruent or incongruent with one another, and participants were asked to vocally identify either the visual or auditory stimuli. I hypothesized that absolute pitch possessors would exhibit slower reaction times than relative pitch possessors when identifying notes during incongruent as opposed to congruent pitch and note trials, which would suggest that absolute pitch possessors are unable to suppress pitch labeling and therefore experience cognitive interference. Contrary to my predictions, however, I found only a main effect of congruency, such that both absolute and relative pitch possessors were equally slowed down by incongruent pitch and note trials. These results suggest that relative pitch possessors may be able to acquire a sense of absolute pitch when exposed to multiple instances of congruent visual and auditory stimuli. In addition, these findings demonstrate that cognitive interference can occur cross-modally between two different sensory pathways such as audition and vision, and that this interference is not limited to individuals who have internalized and absolute (i.e., one to one) relationships between sounds and images.

- by Miren Edelstein
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- Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Music
- by Rita Steblin
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- Music Education, Music Psychology, Jean Jaques Rousseau, Absolute Pitch

Absolute pitch ͑AP͒, the ability to name a musical note in the absence of a reference note, is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, and its genesis is unclear. The prevalence of AP was examined among students in an American music conservatory as a function of age of onset of musical training, ethnicity, and fluency in speaking a tone language. Taking those of East Asian ethnicity, the performance level on a test of AP was significantly higher among those who spoke a tone language very fluently compared with those who spoke a tone language fairly fluently and also compared with those who were not fluent in speaking a tone language. The performance level of this last group did not differ significantly from that of Caucasian students who spoke only nontone language. Early onset of musical training was associated with enhanced performance, but this did not interact with the effect of language. Further analyses showed that the results could not be explained by country of early music education. The findings support the hypothesis that the acquisition of AP by tone language speakers involves the same process as occurs in the acquisition of a second tone language.

- by Diana Deutsch
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- Psychology, Music, Perception, Languages and Linguistics

- by Diana Deutsch
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- Psychology, Music, Perception, China

The temporal and spatial characteristics of the cortical processes responsible for absolute pitch (AP) and relative pitch (RP) were investigated by multi-channel event-related potentials (ERPs). Compared to listening, pitch-naming of tones in non-possessors of AP elicited three ERP components (P3b, parietal positive slow wave, frontal negative slow wave) over parietal and frontal scalp between 300 and 900 ms in latency, representing the cortical processes for RP. Possessors of AP elicited a unique left posterior-temporal negativity ('AP negativity') at 150 ms in both listening and pitch-naming conditions, representing the cortical processes for AP that were triggered by pitch input irrespective of the task the subjects were asked to perform. Congruency of auditory Stroop stimuli modulated the amplitudes of parietal positive slow wave (non-possessors of AP) and 'AP negativity' (possessors of AP), confirming that these components reflect the verbal labeling or pitch-to-pitch-name associative transformation that is central to pitch-naming. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that AP is subserved by neuronal processes in the left auditory association cortex that occur earlier and more automatically than the processes for RP, which involve broader areas of the cortex over longer periods of time.

- by Shugo Suwazono
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- Cognitive Science, Music, Electrophysiology, Semantics
- by Laurent Mottron
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuropsychology, Music

IN MOST ADULTS, PITCH MEMORY FOR SINGLE tones is of short duration, and the presence of interference reduces performance in pitch matching tasks. We show that 6-month-old infants can remember the pitch of a tone for at least 2.5 s but that, like adults, their memory is disrupted by tones interpolated between repetitions of the tone-to-be-remembered. For both infants and adults, we found a significant negative correlation between the number of interference tones and proportion correct in detecting a change in pitch. Performance reached chance levels with 5 interference tones for infants, and 15 interference tones for adults. This indicates that although there may be a developmental increase with age in the length of time a memory can be held, for both 6-month-old infants and adults, memory for the absolute pitch of isolated tones fades rapidly. * * FIGURE 2. Infants' mean proportion correct in the 0, 3, 5, and 15 interference tone conditions. Asterisks indicate performance above the chance level of .5 (p < .05). Number of interference tones was negatively correlated with proportion correct, r(38) = −.62, p < .001. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.

- by JUdy Plantinga and +1
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Music Perception, Absolute Pitch

The pitch identification performance of absolute pitch possessors has previously been shown to depend on pitch range, key color, and timbre of presented tones. In the present study, the dependence of pitch identification performance on key color and timbre of musical tones was examined by analyzing hit rates, reaction times, and pupillary responses of absolute pitch possessors (n 5 9) and nonpossessors (n 5 12) during a pitch identification task. Results revealed a significant dependence of pitch identification hit rate but not reaction time on timbre and key color in both groups. Among absolute pitch possessors, peak dilation of the pupil was significantly dependent on key color whereas the effect of timbre was marginally significant. Peak dilation of the pupil differed significantly between absolute pitch possessors and nonpossessors. The observed effects point to the importance of learning factors in the acquisition of absolute pitch.

- by Kathrin Schlemmer
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- Music, Psychophysiology, Color Perception, Learning

The tritone paradox is produced when two tones that are related by a half-octave (or tritone) are presented in succession. Each tone is composed of a set of octave-related harmonics, whose amplitudes are de-termined by a bell-shaped spectral envelope; thus the tones are clearly defined in terms of pitch class, but poorly defined in terms of height. When listeners judge whether such tone pairs form ascending or de-scending patterns, their judgments generally show systematic relation-ships to the positions of the tones along the pitch-class circle: Tones in one region of the circle are heard as higher and those in the opposite region are heard as lower. However, listeners disagree substantially as to whether a given tone pair forms an ascending or a descending pattern, and therefore as to which tones are heard as higher and which as lower.
This paper demonstrates that the basis for the individual differences in perception of this musical pattern lies in the language spoken by the listener. Two groups of subjects made judgments of the tritone paradox. One group had grown up in California, and the other group had grown up in southern England. It was found that when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as ascending the English group tended to hear it as descending, and when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as descending the English group tended to hear it as ascending. This finding, coupled with the earlier results of Deutsch, North, and Ray (1990) that showed a correlate between perception of the tritone paradox and the pitch range of the listener's spontaneous speaking voice, indicates strongly that the same, culturally acquired representation of pitch classes influences both speech production and perception of this musical pattern.

- by Diana Deutsch
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- Music, Perception, Languages and Linguistics, Absolute Pitch

ABSOLUTE PITCH (AP) IS THE ABILITY TO IDENTIFY OR produce a musical note in isolation. As traditionally defined, AP requires accurate pitch memory as well as knowledge of note names. The incidence of AP is higher in Asia than it is in North America.We used a task with no naming requirements to examine pitch memory among Canadian 9- to 12-year-olds of Asian (Chinese) or non-Asian (European) heritage. On each trial, children heard two versions of a 5-s excerpt from a familiar recording, one of which was shifted upward or downward in pitch. They were asked to identify the excerpt at the original pitch. The groups performed comparably, and knowledge of a tone language did not affect performance. Nonetheless, Asians performed better on a test of academic achievement. These results provide no support for the contribution of genetics or tone-language use to cross-cultural differences in pitch memory.

- by Glenn Schellenberg
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Child Development, Music Perception

Here we show that good pitch memory is widespread among adults with no musical training. We tested unselected college students on their memory for the pitch level of instrumental soundtracks from familiar television programs. Participants heard 5-s excerpts either at the original pitch level or shifted upward or downward by 1 or 2 semitones. They successfully identified the original pitch levels. Other participants who heard comparable excerpts from unfamiliar recordings could not do so. These findings reveal that ordinary listeners retain fine-grained information about pitch level over extended periods. Adults' reportedly poor memory for pitch is likely to be a by-product of their inability to name isolated pitches.

- by Glenn Schellenberg
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Music, Psychoacoustics

The forms, functions, and organization of sounds and utterances are generally the focus of speech communication research; little is known, however, about how the silence between speaker turns shades the meaning of the surrounding talk. We use an experimental protocol to test whether listeners’ perception of trouble in interaction (e.g., disagreement or unwillingness) varies when prosodic cues are manipulated in the context of 2 speech acts (requests and assessments). The prosodic cues investigated were inter-turn silence and the duration, absolute pitch, and pitch contour of affirmative response tokens (“yeah” and “sure”) that followed the inter-turn silence. Study participants evaluated spoken dialogues simulating telephone calls between friends in which the length of silence following a request/assessment (i.e., the inter-turn silence) was manipulated in Praat as were prosodic features of the responses. Results indicate that with each incremental increase in pause duration (0–600–...

- by Alexander Francis
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Audio Signal Processing

Previous research has suggested that pitch naming ability engages two cognitive processes: (1) longterm absolute pitch memory, and (2) conditional associative memory for pitch labelling. Neuroimaging results have linked these processes to activation of right temporofrontal regions for pitch processing, and left posterior dorsolateral frontal cortex for retrieving verbal-pitch associations. 2. Aims: We aimed to directly examine functional activation in musicians with varying degrees of absolute pitch ability during a pitch naming and tonal classification task. 3. Method: Thirty-six highly trained musicians underwent positron emission tomography (PET) following the bolus injection of the blood flow tracer [ 15 O]H 2 O. Three replications of three task conditions were performed: (1) Baseline -listening to pairs of noise bursts and responding with the words 'C natural', (2) Pitch naming -listening to an arpeggiated chord of octaves followed by a tone of the same pitch (target) and responding with its musical note name, and (3) Tonal classification -listening to an arpeggiated dominant chord followed by the tonic or a tone one semitone higher and classifying these as 'tonal' or 'atonal' respectively. High resolution T 1 weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were also acquired in all participants. 4. Results: This paper reports the findings from musicians with quasi-absolute pitch (QAP). In particular, the results showed activation of a right hemisphere network during pitch naming that included regions of the right temporal lobe, notably the superior and middle temporal gyri (BA 21), and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46). This appears to reflect encoding of absolute pitch in musical semantic memory and maintenance of pitch in working memory whilst performing the task. 5. Conclusions: This is the first study to report functional activation in musicians with QAP. The findings have identified differential components of pitch naming that are underpinned by

- by Dean Lusher
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- Absolute Pitch
- by Linda Pring
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- Psychology, Cognitive Science, Music, Autism Spectrum Disorders

O presente trabalho é uma amostra dos resultados obtidos sobre a efetividade do método de David Lucas Burge no desenvolvimento das habilidades de nomeação de notas, isto é, ouvido absoluto. Foi realizado um pré-teste, registrando a acuidade auditiva em nomear notas antes do uso do método, e um pós-teste, realizando os mesmos procedimentos do pré-teste, visando o registro real dos avanços e melhoras em realizar tal tarefa. Também buscamos apresentar ao leitor o que é o método Burge e algumas reflexões sobre os pressupostos teóricos que o autor do método se baseia.

- by Paulo Jeovani
- •
- Absolute Pitch, Educação Musical, Perfect Pitch