Differences in sound perception are reflected by individual auditory fingerprints in musicians

Abstract

Musicians have been reported to show significant inter-Individual differences in elementary hearing functions, sound perception mode, musical instrument preference, performance style, as well as more complex musical abilities like absolute- and relative pitch perception, and auditory imagery. However, it remains unexplored how individual elementary hearing functions and corresponding musical abilities are inter-connected and to what extend they reflect individual differences in the musical behavior of musicians. Using a combination of five listening tests and assessing resulting psychoacoustic parameters, we were able to determine individual auditory fingerprints on the single subject- and group level. 93 musicians (49 professionals and 44 amateurs) were individually tested for: frequency discrimination threshold, holistic and spectral sound perception, absolute pitch perception, relative pitch perception (musical interval recognition), and musical imagery (AMMA). On the individual level, our results show that auditory fingerprints differ remarkably between subjects. On the group level, using PCA and cluster analysis, we found four main components represented significantly different in the three characteristic clusters of subjects. Taken together, our findings suggest that inter-individual differences in the auditory fingerprint reflect the high variability of individual sound perception and may have crucial impact on specific musical preference, style and performance of musicians.