A Tendency Towards Details? Inconsistent Results on Auditory and Visual Local-To-Global Processing in Absolute Pitch Musicians.

Teresa Wenhart,Eckart Altenmüller

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00031

Teresa Wenhart, Eckart Altenmüller

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00031

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Abstract

Absolute pitch, the ability to name or produce a musical tone without a reference, is a rare ability which is often related to early musical training and genetic components. However, it remains a matter of debate why absolute pitch is relatively common in autism spectrum disorders and why absolute pitch possessors exhibit higher autistic traits. By definition absolute pitch is an ability that does not require the relation of tones but is based on a lower-level perceptual entity than relative pitch (involving relations between tones, intervals, and melodies). This study investigated whether a detail-oriented cognitive style, a concept borrowed from the autism literature (weak central coherence theory), might provide a framework to explain this joint occurrence. Two local-to-global experiments in vision (hierarchically constructed letters) and audition (hierarchically constructed melodies) as well as a pitch adjustment test measuring absolute pitch proficiency were conducted in 31 absolute pitch and 33 relative pitch professional musicians. Analyses revealed inconsistent group differences among reaction time, total of correct trials and speed-accuracy-composite-scores of experimental conditions (local vs. global, and congruent vs. incongruent stimuli). Furthermore, amounts of interference of global form on judgments of local elements and vice versa were calculated. Interestingly, reduced global-to-local interference in audition was associated with greater absolute pitch ability and in vision with higher autistic traits. Results are partially in line with the idea of a detail-oriented cognitive style in absolute pitch musicians. The inconsistency of the results might be due to limitations of global-to-local paradigms in measuring cognitive style and due to heterogeneity of absolute pitch possessors. In summary, this study provides further evidence for a multifaceted pattern of various and potentially interacting factors on the acquisition of absolute pitch.

Highlights

Absolute pitch, the ability to name or produce a musical tone without any reference (Takeuchi and Hulse, 1993; Ward, 1999), has frequently been associated with autism (e.g., Heaton et al, 1998; Bonnel et al, 2003; for a review see Mottron et al, 2012) and autistic traits (Brown et al, 2003; Dohn et al, 2012)
Our results cannot confirm or reject the hypothesis that absolute pitch (AP) musicians have a more detail-oriented cognitive style compared to relative pitch (RP)
The evidence is too weak and inconsistent across experiments Pitch Perception and Cognitive Style and conditions to explain differences in AP performance based Performance on auditory or visual hierarchically-constructed on cognitive style alone

Summary

Introduction

The ability to name or produce a musical tone without any reference (Takeuchi and Hulse, 1993; Ward, 1999), has frequently been associated with autism (e.g., Heaton et al, 1998; Bonnel et al, 2003; for a review see Mottron et al, 2012) and autistic traits (Brown et al, 2003; Dohn et al, 2012). Two-component frameworks (Zatorre, 2003; Levitin and Rogers, 2005) usually suggest two mechanisms that build up absolute pitch ability: early pitch categorization and pitch labeling This has led to a range of studies investigating categorical perception (Siegel, 1974; Hedger et al, 2013), associative memory mechanisms of absolute pitch possessors (Elmer et al, 2013; Rogenmoser et al, 2015) and the relation of absolute pitch ability to speech (Deutsch et al, 2006; Deutsch et al, 2009; Oechslin et al, 2010). Recent studies investigating brain structure and function of absolute pitch musicians have found a similar globally hypoconnected brain (e.g., Loui et al, 2011; Jäncke et al, 2012; Dohn et al, 2015) as is often seen in autism (e.g., Courchesne and Pierce, 2005; Supekar et al, 2013; Moseley et al, 2015) alongside with local hyperconnectivity (e.g., Loui et al, 2011; Supekar et al, 2013)

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