Pitch Identification Research Articles

Effects of musical training and absolute pitch ability on event-related activity in response to sine tones.

The neural correlates of music perception have received relatively little scientific attention. The neural activity of listeners without musical training (N = 11), highly trained musicians (N = 14), and musicians possessing "absolute pitch" (AP) ability (N = 10) have been measured. Major differences were observed in the P3, an endogenous event-related potential (ERP), which is thought to be a neurophysiological manifestation of working memory processing. The P3 was elicited using the classical "oddball" paradigm with a sine-tone series. Subjects' musical backgrounds were evaluated with a survey questionnaire. AP ability was verified with an objective pitch identification test. The P3 amplitude, latency and wave shape were evaluated along with each subjects' performance score and musical background. The AP subjects showed a significantly smaller P3 amplitude than either the musicians or nonmusicians, which were nearly identical. The P3 latency was shortest for the AP subjects, and was longer for the nonmusicians. Performance scores were uniformly high in all three groups. It is concluded that AP subjects do indeed exhibit P3 ERPs, albeit with smaller amplitudes and shorter latencies. The differences in neural activity between the musicians and AP subjects were not due to musical training, as the AP subjects had similar musical backgrounds to the musician group. It is also concluded that persons with the AP ability may have superior auditory sensitivity at cortical levels and/or use unique neuropsychological strategies when processing tones.

Musical Savants: Exceptional Skill in the Mentally Retarded

Contents: Musical Savants of the Past. Evaluating Savant Skill. Absolute Pitch. Pitch Identification. Chord Analysis. Short Term Memory. Chords. Melodies. Rhythms. Musical Idioms. Conventional Diatonic Music. Unconventional Musical Forms 8 Long Term Memory. Correlates and Consequences of Savant Skill. On the Nature and Origin of Musical Savants. Epilogue. N. Newman, Appendices: A Music Teacher's Perspective on Savant Skill. Record of Participation. Note Duration Value and Rythms Task.

Virtual pitch and phase sensitivity of a computer model of the auditory periphery. I: Pitch identification

Licklider [Experientia 7, 128–133 (1951)] presented a theory of pitch highlighting the role of auditory-nerve interspike-interval timing information in the process of pitch extraction. His theory is simplified and amended and presented here as a computer implementation. This implementation has been successfully tested using simulations of a wide range of classical demonstrations of pitch phenomena including the missing fundamental, ambiguous pitch, pitch shift of equally spaced, inharmonic components, musical chords, repetition pitch, the pitch of interrupted noise, the existence region, and the dominance region for pitch. The theory is compared with a number of alternative theories and the physiological plausibility of a temporal model is considered.

The Speed of Musical Pitch Identification by Absolute-Pitch Possessors

Three experiments on absolute- pitch identification were performed to examine how quickly and accurately subjects with absolute pitch could respond to different pitch classes. Sixty different pitches in a five-octave range were tested. Subjects with absolute pitch tried to identify the tones as rapidly as possible by pressing corresponding keys on a musical keyboard or a numerical keypad, or by naming vocally. Converging evidence was obtained indicating that the speed and accuracy of responses were directly related. In general, responses to the white-key notes on the musical keyboard were faster and more accurate than those to the black-key notes, C and G being most quickly and accurately identified. This seems to reflect the differential accessibility of pitch classes in the long-term memory of the absolute-pitch possessors, which may be interpreted as a consequence of the acquisition process of absolute pitch in early life.

Pitch identification and discrimination for complex tones with many harmonics

Four experiments are reported that deal with pitch perception of harmonic complex tones containing up to 11 successive harmonics. In particular, the question is raised whether the pitch percept of the missing fundamental is mediated only by low-order resolvable harmonics, or whether it can also be conveyed by high-order harmonics that the cochlea fails to resolve. Melodic interval identification performance was found to remain significantly above chance level even if the range of harmonics extended from the 20th to the 30th. Just-noticeable differences (jnd) in the pitch of the missing fundamental were found to increase with increasing harmonic order, but to level off when all harmonics are above the 12th. These results are consistent with the notion of the existence of two distinct neural pitch mechanisms in the auditory system, but are, in principle, also compatible with a single central-spectrum mechanism that uses the interspike interval histograms of auditory-nerve fibers as inputs.

The influence of duration on the perception of pitch in single and simultaneous complex tones.

The influence of duration on the virtual pitch of complex tones was measured using an absolute identification paradigm. If performance with two-tone complexes is expressed in terms of a single central frequency-coding noise function, this function is found to depend on duration in about the same way as the pure-tone difference limen function. The function is further found to be a reasonably good predictor of pitch identification performance with multitone complexes. Another experimental finding was that subjects tend to switch to the analytic mode of pitch perception when complex tones are shortened (i.e., they tend to hear the spectral pitches instead of the virtual ones). A third finding was that with simultaneous complex tones the degradation of each pitch percept depends not only on duration and harmonic order of the tone but also on the harmonic order of the other tone.

Central processes in the perception of pitch in simultaneous complex tones

Pitch identification of two simultaneous complex tones is more difficult than pitch identification of a single complex tone. In this talk, the more central processes that are involved in the perception of simultaneous complex tones will be discussed. Experiments are reported in which subjects had to identify two missing fundamental frequencies. A first set of experiments uses simultaneous two‐tone complexes with different distributions of the four partial over the ears. It is shown that subjects can identify the two missing fundamental frequencies and that the identification results only weakly depend on the manner of distributing the four partials over the ears. For some subjects, the identification results showed that the more salient pitch can inhibit to some extent the identification of the less salient one. This “central interference” is most prominent when the partials of the two complex tones are widely separated. In a second set of experiments, the influence of signal duration on the virtual pitch of single and simultaneous complex tones is investigated. The results for single complex tones allow the formulation of a stochastic pitch model in which a central processor derives noisy subharmonics from noisy representation of the partials. For simultaneous complex tones, the behavior is more difficult to model because of the more central processes that are involved.

Absolute Pitch Identification: Effects of Timbre and Pitch Region

Pitch identification by absolute-pitch (AP) possessors was tested with three different timbres. Twelve notes per octave in the equally tempered chromatic scale were presented randomly over a seven-octave range. AP subjects identified the note quite accurately but showed a considerable number of octave errors, indicating that they indeed responded primarily to pitch classes. By contrast, subjects lacking AP gave widely scattered responses, indicating that they could not perceive pitch classes at all but responded solely on the basis of the approximate pitch region (pitch height). The performance of AP subjects was best for piano tones and worst for pure tones, and responses were most accurate in the middle region of the musical pitch range. Of 12 pitch classes, white-key notes on a musical keyboard (diatonic tones in the C major scale) tended to be identified more correctly and rapidly than were black-key notes (nondiatonic tones in the C major scale). All of the AP subjects had received training on the piano since a young age. It is suggested that AP can be acquired through such early musical experience.

Pitch of complex tones with many high-order harmonics

Pitch identification and pitch discrimination experiments were performed for complex tones with missing fundamentals between 200 and 300 Hz and with many successive harmonics varying from low (below the 10th) to high (above the 25th) harmonic order. Identification performance was found to degrade with increasing harmonic order from an essentially perfect to an asymptotic level that was clearly less than perfect but much better than chance. Just-noticeable differences in (missing) fundamental frequency were found to increase, with increasing harmonic order, from a fraction of 1 Hz to an asymptotic level of about 5 Hz. Influence of phase was found only for tone complexes of high harmonic order. Results support the existence of two separate pitch mechanisms in the auditory system, one based on pattern matching of resolved frequencies, the other on periodicity of nonresolved frequencies.

Pitch identification of simultaneous diotic and dichotic two-tone complexes.

This study examines subjects' ability to recognize the pitches of two missing fundamentals in two simultaneous two-tone complexes whose partials are distributed in various ways between subjects' ears. The data show that identification performance is affected on different levels. Limited frequency resolution in the peripheral auditory system can degrade performance, but only if none of the four stimulus partials is aurally resolved. Identification performance is only weakly dependent on the manner of distributing partials between the ears. In some cases it was found that, probably at a very central level (e.g., attention), the identification processes of both simultaneous pitches interfere with one another. Some subjects are more likely to identify the pitch of one two-tone complex when the harmonic order of the other complex is higher than when this harmonic order is lower. Finally, some subjects tend to hear the complex tones analytically, i.e., perceive pitches of single partials instead of the missing fundamentals for some distribution of partials between the ears.

Absolute and relative pitch identification by absolute pitch possessors

The identification of absolute and relative pitch was investigated with absolute pitch (AP) possessors and nonpossessors as subjects. In an AP experiment, isolated tones of different pitches (including microtonal pitches) were presented as stimuli in random order. Subjects were requested to select and press a key corresponding to each stimulus on a musical keyboard. While the responses of non‐AP subjects were widely dispersed, the AP subjects could categorize the presented tones quite consistently. Specifically, they identified white‐key notes more correctly and rapidly than black‐key notes. In a relative pitch experiment, isolated melodic ascending intervals from the minor second to the octave were randomly presented. The lower tone of an interval was either middle C, F♯, or a 50‐cent higher D♯. Then non‐AP subjects performed more or less successfully and almost equally regardless of transposition. On the other hand, the AP subjects made more errors and gave longer response times when the lower tone of an interval was F♯ or the higher D♯ than when it was C. These results suggest that at least some AP possessors have difficulty in dealing with musical intervals and tend to rely upon their AP sense in the face of a relative pitch task.

Musical pitch identification by absolute pitch possessors.

Musical pitch identification was investigated in two experiments in which absolute pitch (AP) possessors and nonpossessors categorized tones presented in isolation into predetermined pitch classes. Stimuli consisted of 60 different tones per octave (at intervals of 20 cents). The experiments were designed to minimize the possibility that subjects could use strategies other than AP in performing the task. The results clearly differentiated AP possessors from nonpossessors in accuracy and speed of responding. Those subjects who had AP could categorize the tones quite consistently by using musical qualities of the tones (tone chroma). However, they did not respond uniformly to all stimuli; they responded more accurately and quickly to some musically important tones in a C-major mode (C, E, or G).On the other hand, those who had no AP showed almost random response patterns. In the absence of a tonal context, they could not use tone chroma, but onlytone height. It is argued that tone chroma should be defined as the musical characteristics of tones in a tonal context, and that AP possessors are unique in that they can perceive it absolutely in the absence of any musical context. Although AP was believed to be very rare, it was proved here that a phenomenally large proportion of the subjects tested had AP. The correlation was observed between AP possession and early musical training that started at the age of 3 to 5.

Pitch identification of simultaneous dichotic two-tone complexes.

The optimum processor theory of Goldstein can, in principle, account for pitch perception phenomena involving simultaneous dichotic complex tones. The frequency-coding noise function, which is the only free parameter of the model, was estimated with pitch identification data of two simultaneous two-tone complexes presented to different ears. This "sigma" function was found to have a shape similar to that of the function derived from data on identification performance for single pitches. The sigmas in the simultaneous pitch identification experiment are larger by an amount that differs from subject to subject. By using different methods of data analysis it was found that the pitch estimation processes for the two tones are independent for most subjects. This allows a simple extension of Goldstein's optimum processor theory.

Pitch identification device

A transducer receives notes from a musical instrument and converts them into electrical signals. The signals are passed to filter banks containing filters having passbands in different octave ranges. The filtered signals in each bank are added and translated in frequency to the frequency range of the highest octave of interest. The translated signals are then passed through a plurality of filters each of which is tuned to pass directly the frequency of one pitch in that octave. Indicators are attached to the pitch filters to indicate the presence of a signal passing therethrough. Also, additional indicators may be attached to the octave filters to indicate the octave from which the signal originated.

Musical pitch of interrupted white noise

The pitch of periodically chopped white noise has been the object of several investigations in the literature. Because of the essentially flat spectrum of such a sound, any musical pitch effects are difficult to account for with a place model. Previous investigations, mostly involving pitch matching experiments, have left some doubt whether observed pitch effects were indeed factual or artifactual [Pollack, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 45, 237 (1969)]. A series of musical interval identification experiments was performed using interrupted gaussian wide-band noise whose interruption rate was given by the notes to be presented. Intensities were 30 dB SPL, the noise on-time fraction was 0.5 and gating frequencies varied between 100 and 300 Hz. In this range, the pitch confusion data are well described by a simple Gaussian decision model whose variances are somewhat larger than the data scatter in previously reported pitch matching experiments. However, pitch identification performance with chopped noise is much worse than the same subjects' identification performance with pure tones or other periodic signals, which seems to indicate that, at least from a musical standpoint, we are dealing with a rather weak effect. [Work supported by the National Institutes of Health, grant 1RO1 NS 11680-01.]

Increased Difficulty of Pitch Identification and Electroencephalographic Desynchronization

EEG waves were recorded while subjects were to remember a given reference tone and later identify it as a part of a series of neighboring pitches. Each of the four reference tones was surrounded by pitches of increasingly smaller intervallic range. The results indicated a slightly greater amount of alpha desynchronization during discrimination of pitches at the two more difficult levels.

Memory processes in the identification of pitch

A study in pitch identification with three interstimulus intervals is reported. Ss received a pretest, three drills, and a posttest. Results include: (a) superior performance on stimuli requiring only a simple discrimination judgment, (b) inferior performance at longer interstimulus intervals, (c) a greater tendency to repeat correct rather than incorrect responses to adjacent tones at the same pitch level, and (d) a modest, but reliable, improvement in pitch identification accuracy from the pre- to the posttest. Relevance of the results for an interpretation of pitch identification as dependent on memory processes is discussed.

The Relationships among Pitch Identification, Imagery for Musical Sounds, and Musical Memory

The Relationships among Pitch Identification, Imagery for Musical Sounds, and Musical Memory