Pitch and plasticity: insights from the pitch matching of chords by musicians with absolute and relative pitch

Absolute pitch (AP) is a form of sound recognition in which musical note names are associated with discrete musical pitch categories. The accuracy of pitch matching by non-AP musicians for chords has recently been shown to depend on stimulus familiarity, pointing to a role of spectral recognition me...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain sciences 2013-12, Vol.3 (4), p.1615-1634
Main Authors: McLachlan, Neil M, Marco, David J T, Wilson, Sarah J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
absolute pitch
Brain
Cognition & reasoning
concurrent pitch
Ears & hearing
Musicians & conductors
Neurobiology
neurocognitive model
pitch
recognition
Sensory perception
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Absolute pitch (AP) is a form of sound recognition in which musical note names are associated with discrete musical pitch categories. The accuracy of pitch matching by non-AP musicians for chords has recently been shown to depend on stimulus familiarity, pointing to a role of spectral recognition mechanisms in the early stages of pitch processing. Here we show that pitch matching accuracy by AP musicians was also dependent on their familiarity with the chord stimulus. This suggests that the pitch matching abilities of both AP and non-AP musicians for concurrently presented pitches are dependent on initial recognition of the chord. The dual mechanism model of pitch perception previously proposed by the authors suggests that spectral processing associated with sound recognition primes waveform processing to extract stimulus periodicity and refine pitch perception. The findings presented in this paper are consistent with the dual mechanism model of pitch, and in the case of AP musicians, the formation of nominal pitch categories based on both spectral and periodicity information.
ISSN:2076-3425
2076-3425
DOI:10.3390/brainsci3041615