Perfect Pitch: The Neural Basis and Perceptual Mechanisms Involved

Abstract

The perception of music depends on many factors. When a person can identify any pitch without any external reference, that person is said to have perfect pitch. To date, the perfect pitch has been considered one of the most important, perhaps more than the relative pitch, but we see that is not necessarily so. In this review, we will make an analysis of how absolute pitch affects people in their performance, as well as the possible brain locations. In turn, we'll show comparisons with musicians and non-musicians, with speakers of second languages to appreciate how far the perception of sounds is acute. It is a rare skill that has an incidence below 0.01% in the general population. Part of its rarity is because the absolute pitch is something usually evident only among those with musical training as untrained persons often have no knowledge of the names of the notes, as a rule. Currently the most used is the tone on tone, which is what usually has the most non-musicians or musicians without perfect pitch. With relative pitch, one can perceive if the intonation rises or falls, if a note is higher or lower or if a melody is familiar. It is an inherent characteristic of the auditory system, and that does not usually require extensive experience or training to develop, as it is present even in young children, who from childhood can recognize small transpositions (1). Some authors suggest that the development of absolute pitch depends on the training a person receives throughout his career. However, the results of a survey of more than 600 musicians, 40% of the ones that started training from the age of 4 mentioned it, but only 3% of those who started training from the age of 9 or later said they acquired the skill (2). So, this would indicate that it depends on the formation, if so; it would be a very early dependence, usually between 6 and 7 years. This training should be gradual and also by diatonic scales to go through stepping ear tones. In turn, we have seen that a genetic predisposition to the growth of this ability is accentuated (3). It should not be difficult to identify the sound of the human voice as it is something to which we are exposed every day, but these people have problems when discriminating the singing voice. Perhaps more exposed to the proximity of the instrument itself creates a link that familiarity and sounds from any minstrel will be easier to recognize, but this still does not give an explanation to the question of why it is difficult to discern the pure tones that are sung since we live in the world full of interactions. One of the oddities of people with absolute pitch is that they can associate the names of the note's isolated tones more easily than if given a comparison of individual differences in the same tone as the focus is something that is widespread in these people and therefore, is understood to be the explanation for this peculiarity. Precisely because of that association with the names and display of the voice it is that we take the model of Koelsch of the neural basis of perception (3), which shows the interaction between music and language syntax. It shows that both domains require contributions from neurons that are located in the same location (Brodmann Area44). Despite employing the same area, experiments show that within the same, remains neural subpopulations mediate a syntactic-musical processing. The problem now is to try to establish the link and not just in the area of language and music that has been superimposed, but whether absolute pitch benefits equally. Approach to the Field