Superior pitch identification ability is associated with better executive functions.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Decades of research have shown that individuals vary greatly in their ability to identify musical notes. On one extreme are individuals with absolute pitch (AP), who can label or identify individual musical notes with high accuracy and fast speed without the benefit of an external reference (Levitin, 1999; Parncutt & Levitin, 2001). Researchers have examined several factors that have potential influence on AP, including cognitive (e.g., memory), environmental (e.g., early musical training before or during a critical period of auditory development), and genetic factors (Chin, 2003; Drayna, Manichaikul, DeLange, Snieder, & Spector, 2001; Theusch, Basu, & Gitschier, 2009; Zatorre, 2003).In terms of cognitive functions, some studies have shown that AP musicians tend to perform better than non-AP musicians on select cognitive tasks. For example, Zatorre and Beckett (1989) found that AP musicians performed significantly better than non-AP musicians in delayed recall of note names with verbal or tonal interference. Studies have also shown that AP musicians have better long-term pitch memory than non-AP musicians (Levitin, 1999; Levitin & Rogers, 2005; Parncutt & Levitin, 2001). Recently, Hsieh and Saberi (2008) found that AP musicians were more likely than non-AP musicians to use strategies of semantic associative memory, such as linguistic, emotional, or spatial representations, to perform a pitch matching task. Interestingly, however, AP and non-AP musicians did not differ significantly in vocal pitch reproduction of isolated, randomly selected musical notes, perhaps because the pitch memory for vocal reproduction was accessible to both groups through procedural memory, rather than semantic memory (Hsieh & Saberi, 2008). Similarly, Benassi-Werke, Queiroz, Araujo, Bueno, and Oliveira (2012) found that AP musicians and professional musicians had a general advantage over amateur musicians in their memory span of tones, but not that of digits or pseudowords.AP musicians' advantage in selected cognitive functions has also been supported by brain imaging evidence. For example, structural neuroimaging studies showed that, compared with non-AP musicians and normal controls, AP musicians showed greater left cerebral asymmetry in the planum temporale (an area implicated in long-term pitch representation; Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001; Schlaug, Jancke, Huang, & Steinmetz, 1995; Wilson, Lusher, Wan, Dudgeon, & Reutens, 2009). Moreover, the white matter of the left superior longitudinal fasciculus, which connects the temporal lobe for auditory processing with the frontal lobes for executive functions such as working memory (WM) and attention, was also larger in AP musicians than in non-AP musicians (Hagmann et al., 2006; Oechslin, Imfeld, Loenneker, Meyer, & Jancke, 2010). In sum, previous research has generally shown that AP is associated with selected cognitive functions as well as relevant brain functions and structures.Although previous research has focused on AP among musicians, recent research has shown that pitch identification (PI) ability is likely to be distributed on a continuum, with AP at its extreme upper end. According to Deutsch, Moore, and Dolson (1986), AP is a complex faculty that may exist in partial form. Indeed, AP has been divided into several subtypes, such as AP-1, -2, -3, and -4(Baharloo, Johnston, Service, Gitschier, & Freimer, 1998); high-AP, middle-AP, and low-AP (Itoh, Suwazono, Arao, Miyazaki, & Nakada, 2005); and weak AP or quasi- or pseudo-AP (Bermudez & Zatorre, 2009; Levitin, 2008; Miyazaki, 1989). To better understand the cognitive mechanisms involved in AP or PI in general, it would be informative to study nonmusicians. Thus far, only three studies have tried to assess AP or PI ability among nonmusicians. Ross, Olson, Marks, and Gore (2004) designed a nonmusical paradigm to identify AP possessors among nonmusicians. …