A Distribution of Absolute Pitch Ability as Revealed by Computerized Testing

Bermudez, Patrick; Zatorre, Robert J.

doi:10.1525/mp.2009.27.2.89

Cited by 72 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The advantage of white over black key pitches also replicates findings from other studies using a variety of paradigms (Sergeant, 1969;Carroll, 1975;Miyazaki, 1988Miyazaki, , 1989Miyazaki, , 1990Hulse, 1991, 1993;Simpson and Huron, 1994;Marvin and Brinkman, 2000;Vanzella and Schellenberg, 2010;Athos et al, 2007;Bermudez and Zatorre, 2009;Miyazaki et al, 2012). As described earlier, the present black/white key effect cannot be attributed to early training on the piano, since a larger effect was found for orchestral performers than for pianists.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…In general, pitches corresponding to white keys on the keyboard (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) have been identified with greater accuracy and speed than those corresponding to black keys (C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb, G#/Ab, A#/Bb) (Sergeant, 1969;Carroll, 1975;Miyazaki, 1988Miyazaki, , 1989Miyazaki, , 1990Hulse, 1991, 1993;Simpson and Huron, 1994;Marvin and Brinkman, 2000;Vanzella and Schellenberg, 2010;Athos et al, 2007;Bermudez and Zatorre, 2009;Miyazaki et al, 2012). Two main explanations for this effect have been advanced.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Absolute pitch among students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music: A large-scale direct-test study

Deutsch

Shen

2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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This paper reports a large-scale direct-test study of absolute pitch (AP) in students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Overall note-naming scores were very high, with high scores correlating positively with early onset of musical training. Students who had begun training at age ≤5 yr scored 83% correct not allowing for semitone errors and 90% correct allowing for semitone errors. Performance levels were higher for white key pitches than for black key pitches. This effect was greater for orchestral performers than for pianists, indicating that it cannot be attributed to early training on the piano. Rather, accuracy in identifying notes of different names (C, C#, D, etc.) correlated with their frequency of occurrence in a large sample of music taken from the Western tonal repertoire. There was also an effect of pitch range, so that performance on tones in the two-octave range beginning on Middle C was higher than on tones in the octave below Middle C. In addition, semitone errors tended to be on the sharp side. The evidence also ran counter to the hypothesis, previously advanced by others, that the note A plays a special role in pitch identification judgments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absolute pitch among students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music: A large-scale direct-test study

Deutsch

Shen

2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…AP is not an all-or-none phenomenon; rather, it can be described as a gradient of ability (Bermudez & Zatorre, 2009). On the high end, some with a strong AP ability can be accurate to within 20 cents in their pitch identifications (100 cents ¼ 1 semitone ;Miyazaki, 1988;van Krevelen, 1951), and can even automatically identify the pitches of non-instruments, such as car horns, glasses, and spoons (Bachem, 1937).…”

Section: T He Act Of Imitating a Vocal Pitch Whilementioning

confidence: 99%

Symbolic and Motor Contributions to Vocal Imitation in Absolute Pitch

Hutka

Moreno

2015

Music Perception

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THE LINKED DUAL REPRESENTATION MODEL (Hutchins & Moreno, 2013) was designed to provide an account for the broad pattern of relationships between vocal perception and production, including both correlations and dissociations between the two. This model makes a unique prediction that musicians with absolute pitch (AP) should be biased towards compensating for objectively mistuned notes in a single note imitation task. In this paper, we tested this prediction by asking musicians with and without AP to imitate vocal notes that are either well-tuned or mistuned. We found that AP musicians were more likely to bias their responses to compensate for mistunings, and that this effect was stronger after longer response delays. We also showed evidence for some implicit AP-like abilities among non-AP musicians. Our findings were predicted by the Linked Dual Representation model, but not other models, providing further evidence for this model.

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“…Bermudez and Zatorre (2009) found considerable evidence for an ''intermediate'' level of AP performance (i.e. performance that was clearly above chance, but more variable that what is commonly defined as ''true'' AP ability).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%