Perception and learning of relative pitch by musicians using the vibrotactile mode

Abstract

This study investigated the perception and learning of relative pitch using vibrotactile stimuli by musicians with and without a hearing impairment. Notes from C3 to B4 were presented to the fingertip and forefoot. Pre- and post-training tests in which 420 pairs of notes were presented randomly were carried out without any feedback to participants. After the pre-training test, 16 short training sessions were carried out over six weeks with 72 pairs of notes per session and participants told whether their answers were correct. For amateur and professional musicians with normal hearing and professional musicians with a severe or profound hearing loss, larger pitch intervals were easier to identify correctly than smaller intervals. Musicians with normal hearing had a high success rate for relative pitch discrimination as shown by pre- and post-training tests, and when using the fingertips, there was no significant difference between amateur and professional musicians. After training, median scores on the tests in which stimuli were presented to the fingertip and forefoot were >70% for intervals of 3–12 semitones. Training sessions reduced the variability in the responses of amateur and professional musicians with normal hearing and improved their overall ability. There was no significant difference between the relative pitch discrimination abilities between one and 11 semitones, as shown by the pre-training test, of professional musicians with and without a severe/profound hearing loss. These findings indicate that there is potential for vibration to be used to facilitate group musical performance and music education in schools for the deaf.

Can Haptic Stimulation Enhance Music Perception in Hearing-Impaired Listeners?

“…CI users often have considerable difficulties when singing, particularly in producing the correct pitch (Xu et al, 2009;Mao et al, 2013). There have been some promising results when providing pitch information to hearing-impaired listeners through haptic stimulation to improve singing (Sakajiri et al, 2010(Sakajiri et al, , 2013Shin et al, 2020;Hopkins et al, 2021). Future work should establish the effectiveness of the alternative pitch-based haptic stimulation approach suggested by Fletcher et al (2020c), which was shown to provide high-resolution pitch information.…”

Los caminos compartidos del tacto y el sonido hacia la emoción: Evidencias neurocientíficas actuales

“…Son particularmente interesantes los estudios de Carl Hopkins et al (2016) sobre la discriminación de los tonos de la escala musical occidental aplicando vibraciones táctiles con la frecuencia pura de cada tono en la yema de los dedos y en la planta del pie de los sujetos. Los resultados de sus investigaciones muestran que el rango de notas musicales que pueden considerarse para la presentación vibro-táctil de la música comprende desde la nota C1 (es decir el Do de la octava más baja del piano 32,70 Hz) hasta la nota G5 (la nota Sol de la quinta octava del piano 783,99 Hz), aunque este umbral se puede ampliarse aumentando la amplitud de la estimulación táctil por encima del umbral medio y con entrenamiento (Hopkins et al, 2023). A la hora de generar el estímulo táctil hay que tener especial cuidado con la amplitud ya que el rango de discriminación tonal puede verse afectado por los niveles de amplitud con los que se genera el estímulo (Brewster y Brown, 2004).…”

Tactile displays for auditory augmentation–A scoping review and reflections on music applications for hearing impaired users

“…Archetype of a vibrotactile augmentation system. (Hopkins et al, 2021). The last musical dimension that researchers focus on in terms of its vibrotactile properties is the timbre-the tempo-spectral characteristics of the stimulation that translates into the perceived quality of the sound, anecdotally refereed to as the color of sound or tone color.…”