Absolute Pitch Possessors Research Articles

Comparative Tone-Colour Responses of College Music Majors with Absolute Pitch and Good Relative Pitch

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that college music majors possessing absolute pitch will be more consistent in their tone-colour responses over a period of time than college music majors possessing good relative pitch. Data were gathered for 22 college music majors, 10 possessors of absolute pitch and 12 who possess good relative pitch. The students were administered an individual test on five consecutive weeks. Each test consisted of recordings of the 12 tones within an octave performed on a pipe organ, using the flute stop. The tones of each week's test were in a different random order. After each note was sounded, the student selected a colour from a colour wheel placed in front of him. Consistency of response, from week to week, was measured and evaluated. A comparison of the two groups' mean variability across the five trials for each of the 12 tones revealed a statistically significant difference (p < *001) between the two groups' mean response for each of the 12 pitches. In all cases, the mean response of the perfect pitch subjects was significantly more consistent than that of the relative pitch subjects.

Absolute identification of notes and intervals by musicians

Speech sounds are judged reliably and absolutely, while the judgment of nonspeech stimuli, such as tones, is thought to be unreliable and dependent on contextual cues. Here we demonstrated that the judgment of tonal stimuli may also be reliable and absolute, provided that the subjects are trained musicians. In Experiment 1, musicians with relative pitch identified 21 tonal intervals ranging from unison to major third, and the resulting identification functions were similar to those that have been previously obtained for speech. In Experiment 3, the judgment of intervals by musicians was shown to be free of context effects, since the best subjects gave virtually identical judgments to the same intervals in two stimulus contexts. Similar results were obtained in Experiments 2 and 4 for the judgment of single tones by possessors of absolute pitch. Performance with both notes and intervals by nonmusicians, however, was unreliable and greatly influenced by context. These findings suggest that musicians acquire categories for pitch that are functionally similar to phonemic categories for speech

Strategies of absolute pitch possessors in the learning of an unfamiliar scale

Possessors of absolute pitch and control subjects were trained and later tested to identify pitches labeled with arbitrary note names. Although the absolute pitch subjects learned better than the controls, there was no difference in learning rate. Results are discussed in terms of sensory memory and category availability.

Context-free judgment of tonal stimuli by musicians

While speech sounds may be identified on an absolute basis, it is thought that tonal stimuli are judged on a contextual basis, in relation to immediately preceeding stimuli. Evidence is presented here that musicians with relative pitch are able to judge tonal intervals on an absolute basis, and that musicians with absolute pitch can judge single-tone frequencies without reference to context. In Experiment I, four subjects with relative pitch and four controls made magnitude estimates of 21 intervals spaced in equal-log steps over a range of five semitones. After six blocks of trials, the stimulus range was shifted suddenly without warning. The postshift set consisted of 11 intervals from the preshift condition, plus ten larger intervals. The controls showed judgmental contrast, which built up monotonically over the six postshift trial blocks, while the relative pitch group was virtually uninfluenced by the shift in context. Similar results were obtained in Experiment II, in which six possessors of absolute pitch and six controls judged single-tone frequencies.

Sensory and verbal coding strategies in subjects with absolute pitch

The performance of six absolute-pitch and six control subjects was examined in three studies involving recognition memory for tone frequency. When the standard and comparison were 1/10 semitone apart, absolute-pitch subjects reported using a sensory coding strategy and did not differ from the controls in overall performance or rate of forgetting. When the stimulus difference was 3/4 semitone, absolute-pitch subjects shifted to a verbal coding strategy, and their memory for pitch was significantly better than the controls. With a one-semitone difference, the absolute-pitch group showed no significant forgetting over a 15-sec retention interval filled with interference tones. These findings support the hypothesis that possessors of absolute pitch show superior pitch memory only when they can differentially label the stimuli with musical-note names.

Sensory and verbal coding strategies in subjects with absolute pitch.

The performance of six absolute‐pitch and six control subjects was examined in three studies involving recognition memory for tone frequency. When the standard and comparison were 1/10 semitone apart, absolute‐pitch subjects reported using a sensory coding strategy and did not differ from the controls in overall performance or rate of forgetting. When the stimulus difference was 3/4 semitone, absolute‐pitch subjects shifted to a verbal coding strategy, and their memory for pitch was significantly better than the controls. With a one‐semitone difference, the absolute‐pitch group showed no significant forgetting over a 15‐sec retention interval filled with interference tones. These findings support the hypothesis that possessors of absolute pitch show superior pitch memory only when they can differentially label the stimuli with musical‐note names.

Absolute Pitch

The author, who possesses absolute pitch since the time of his earliest musical experiences at the age of five years, has spent much time in studying this musical phenomenon. Amused by the fact that the most extensive work on “absolute pitch” was conducted by psychologists who did not possess this faculty and that it was done on large groups of students, none of whom possessed this faculty either [For exception see O. Abraham, Sammelbde d. Internat. Musikges 3, 1 (1901) and G. Révész, Zur Grundlegung der Tonpsychologie (Leipzig)], he was convinced that a study by a possessor of absolute pitch on himself and on a large number of other possessors of absolute pitch might lead to different and better results. An original study [A. Bachem, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 9, 146 (1937)] was conducted on 96 possessors of absolute pitch and 7 more or less musical persons without this faculty for comparison. The work was extended in the course of time to specific related problems which presented themselves through several discoveries.