Is it impossible to acquire absolute pitch in adulthood?

Abstract

Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the rare ability to name the pitch of a tone without external reference. It is widely believed to be only for the selected few with rare genetic makeup and early musical training during the critical period, and therefore acquiring AP in adulthood is impossible. Previous studies have not offered a strong test of the effect of training because of issues like small sample size and insufficient training. In three experiments, adults learned to name pitches in a computerized, gamified and personalized training protocol for 12 to 40 hours, with the number of pitches gradually increased from three to twelve. Across the three experiments, the training covered different octaves, timbre, and training environment (inside or outside laboratory). AP learning showed classic characteristics of perceptual learning, including generalization of learning dependent on the training stimuli, and sustained improvement for at least one to three months. 14% of the participants (6 out of 43) were able to name twelve pitches at 90% or above accuracy, comparable to that of 'AP possessors' as defined in the literature. Overall, AP continues to be learnable in adulthood, which challenges the view that AP development requires both rare genetic predisposition and learning within the critical period. The finding calls for reconsideration of the role of learning in the occurrence of AP, and pushes the field to pinpoint and explain the differences, if any, between the aspects of AP more trainable in adulthood and the aspects of AP that are potentially exclusive for the few exceptional AP possessors observed in the real world. Keywords Absolute pitch. Pitch perception. Musical training. Perceptual learning. Perceptual expertise. Critical period Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the ability to name the pitch of a tone (e.g., naming a tone as "C") or to produce it without external reference tones (Takeuchi & Hulse, 1993; W. D. Ward, 1999). While the majority of us can effortlessly identify a countless number of faces, objects, and visual and auditory words, most people find it very difficult to name the twelve pitches, and professional musicians are no exception (Athos et al., 2007; Levitin & Rogers, 2005; Zatorre, 2003). The most extreme estimate states that, in every 10,000 people, there is one 'AP possessor' who can perform AP judgment accurately

Absolute pitch learning in adults speaking non-tonal languages

“…We aimed at recruiting as many exchange students as possible in a 3-month period, and ended up training 13 exchange students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (six males, mean age = 21.23, SD = 3.98). The sample size required was estimated using GPower 3.1.9.2 based on our previous training study on tonal language speakers (Wong et al, 2020). In that study, a large effect size was observed for the improvement in adults during the generalisation test (pretest vs. posttest; average normalη p 2 = .701 across three experiments for trained tones).…”

“…The training was adapted from a previous study (Wong et al, 2020). It was gamified and structured into 30 levels, organised into 10 three-level parts with increasing number of pitches (from 3 to 12; Figure 2a).…”

“…A recent study, however, demonstrated that adults can learn AP through a computerised and intensive training protocol for 12–40 hr (Wong et al, 2020). The training required participants to perform pitch naming or verification, with the number of pitches gradually increased to 12 based on individual progress.…”

“…The primary goal of this study was to test whether tonal language exposure during early childhood is a necessary condition for learning AP in adulthood. In the aforementioned study that successfully trained AP in adults (Wong et al, 2020), all participants spoke Cantonese, a tonal language, as their first language. According to some theoretical proposals, their tonal language learning as a child has established absolute, precise, and stable tonal templates that are associated with words, which might have facilitated AP acquisition as a “second language” (Deutsch et al, 2004, 2006, 2009).…”

“…This would be comparable to one of the fastest mean response times of “AP possessors” in the literature (1,216 ms; Miyazaki, 1990). Despite the fact that response time per se cannot ascertain whether an individual names every pitch absolutely (Wong et al, 2020), it at least ensures that the “degree of automaticity” of AP would be similar between the trained AP and real-world “AP possessors.” Overall, the task demand of fast and accurate AP naming provides a robust test of the learnability of AP in non-tonal speakers.…”