Studies in Pitch Discrimination

Whipple, Guy Montrose

doi:10.2307/1412320

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, individual differences in piano and violin instruction did not appear to be related to any performance differences whatsoever. In this sense, our results mark an important distinction between the previous research demonstrating performance advantages for an AP possessor's primary instrument (e.g., Brammer, 1951;Bahr et al, 2005;Whipple, 1903). We are not claiming, however, that our findings are incompatible with the instrument-specific advantages found in AP possessors for their primary instruments.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 76%

The effects of acoustic variability on absolute pitch categorization: Evidence of contextual tuning

Hedger

Heald

Nusbaum

2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Absolute pitch (AP) is defined as the ability to label a musical note without the aid of a reference note. Despite the large amounts of acoustic variability encountered in music, AP listeners generally experience perceptual constancy for different exemplars within note categories (e.g., recognizing that a C played on a tuba belongs to the same category as a C played on a piccolo). The present studies investigate whether AP possessors are sensitive to context variability along acoustic dimensions that are not inherently linked to the typical definition of a note category. In a speeded target recognition task, AP participants heard a sequence of notes and pressed a button whenever they heard a designated target note. Within a trial the sequence of notes was either blocked according to note-irrelevant variation or contained a mix of different instruments (Experiment 1), amplitude levels (Experiment 2), or octaves (Experiment 3). Compared to the blocked trials, participants were significantly slower to respond in the mixed-instrument and mixed-octave trials, but not the mixed-amplitude trials. Importantly, this performance difference could not be solely attributed to initial performance differences between instruments, amplitudes, or octaves. These results suggest that AP note identification is contextually sensitive.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 76%

The effects of acoustic variability on absolute pitch categorization: Evidence of contextual tuning

Hedger

Heald

Nusbaum

2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…From the time of the earliest discussions (Stumpf, 1883) it has been noted that pitch judgments made by AP subjects are much faster than those of NAP subjects, who often require at least a few seconds to deliberate about their judgments. It has also been claimed (Whipple, 1903) that even for AP subjects, the correct judgments are faster than the incorrect ones. There are, nevertheless, few studies of the latencies of AP judgments--either for AP or NAP subjects, and those that exist (Abraham, 1901;Baird, 1917;Weinert, 1929) are of limited value either because of primitive technology, limited design, or inadequate reporting.…”

Section: Speed Of Ap Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Speed and Accuracy of Absolute Pitch Judgments: Some Latter‐day Results

Carroll¹

1975

ETS Research Bulletin Series

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Nine subjects, 5 of whom claimed absolute pitch (AP) ability (4 from childhood, 1 by self‐training) were given a pitch judgment task in which they had to strike notes on the piano as rapidly as possible to match randomized tape‐recorded piano notes. Stimulus set sizes were 64, 16, or 4 consecutive semitones, or 7 diatonic notes of a designated octave. A control task involved motor movements to notes announced in advance, with the effect that set size was 1. Accuracy, measured on the basis of deviations of responses from targets, significantly differentiated AP from NAP (non‐AP) subjects at all set sizes except the control task. For both groups, accuracy increased as set size decreased. Decision times, measured as that part of total response time before a movement to the response note began, decreased as set size decreased, but did not differentiate AP and NAP subjects. The performance of the trained AP subject was not distinguishable from that of the remaining AP subjects either in accuracy or decision time. Results are discussed in terms of a two‐factor theory of AP ability whereby NAP subjects use only relative tone height as the basis of judgment but AP subjects also use standards of tone chroma stored in long‐term memory. The abnormally high channel capacities and rates of information gain for AP subjects are interpreted on the basis of transmission of information in two channels, whereas NAP subjects transmit information in only one channel.

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“…As each instrument varies subtly in tone color and intonational or timbral tendencies, musicians may be particularly attuned to the idiosyncrasies of their personal instrument. Whipple (1903) reports a case study in which an AP possessor performed significantly better in pitch identification on her own piano than on the experimenter's piano (92% vs. 70% accuracy). In this case, we would expect musicians without AP to have an advantage in identifying pitches played on their personal instrument over pitches played on a different instrument of the same type.…”

Section: Timbral Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pitch-labeling in global AP possessors may be related to motor imagery for at least some people: in a study by Gruhn et al (2018), a subset of participants described strong associations between absolute pitches and motor and body sensations, like instrumental fingerings or laryngeal position. Whipple (1903) describes the self-reported experience of an AP possessor identifying pitches as having a motor component: when listening to music, "finger movements are vaguely felt" (p. 291). Whipple concludes that the association of finger movements is a critical feature of the subject's AP memory.…”

Section: Motor Imagerymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

Reymore

2020

Front. Psychol.

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While absolute pitch (AP)-the ability to name musical pitches globally and without reference-is rare in expert musicians, anecdotal evidence suggests that some musicians may better identify pitches played on their primary instrument than pitches played on other instruments. We call this phenomenon "instrument-specific absolute pitch" (ISAP). In this paper we present a theory of ISAP. Specifically, we offer the hypothesis that some expert musicians without global AP may be able to more accurately identify pitches played on their primary instrument(s), and we propose timbral cues and articulatory motor imagery as two underlying mechanisms. Depending on whether informative timbral cues arise from performer-or instrument-specific idiosyncrasies or from timbre-facilitated tonotopic representations, we predict that performance may be enhanced for notes played by oneself, notes played on one's own personal instrument, and/or notes played on any exemplar of one's own instrument type. Sounds of one's primary instrument may moreover activate kinesthetic memory and motor imagery, aiding pitch identification. In order to demonstrate how our theory can be tested, we report the methodology and analysis of two exemplary experiments conducted on two case-study participants who are professional oboists. The aim of the first experiment was to determine whether the oboists demonstrated ISAP ability, while the purpose of the second experiment was to provide a preliminary investigation of the underlying mechanisms. The results of the first experiment revealed that only one of the two oboists showed an advantage for identifying oboe tones over piano tones. For this oboist demonstrating ISAP, the second experiment demonstrated that pitchnaming accuracy decreased and variance around the correct pitch value increased as an effect of transposition and motor interference, but not of instrument or performer. These preliminary data suggest that some musicians possess ISAP while others do not. Timbral cues and motor imagery may both play roles in the acquisition of this ability. Based on our case study findings, we provide methodological considerations and recommendations for future empirical testing of our theory of ISAP.

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Studies in Pitch Discrimination

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

The effects of acoustic variability on absolute pitch categorization: Evidence of contextual tuning

The effects of acoustic variability on absolute pitch categorization: Evidence of contextual tuning

Speed and Accuracy of Absolute Pitch Judgments: Some Latter‐day Results

A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

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