Absolute pitch in children prior to the beginning of musical training

Absolute pitch can be learned by some adults

Absolute pitch (AP), the rare ability to name any musical note without the aid of a reference note, is thought to depend on an early critical period of development. Although recent research has shown that adults can improve AP performance in a single training session, the best learners still did not achieve note classification levels comparable to performance of a typical, "genuine" AP possessor. Here, we demonstrate that these "genuine" levels of AP performance can be achieved within eight weeks of training for at least some adults, with the best learner passing all measures of AP ability after training and retaining this knowledge for at least four months after training. Alternative explanations of these positive results, such as improving accuracy through adopting a slower, relative pitch strategy, are not supported based on joint analyses of response time and accuracy. The results also did not appear to be driven by extreme familiarity with a single instrument or octave range, as the post-training AP assessments used eight different timbres and spanned over seven octaves. Yet, it is also important to note that a majority of the participants only exhibited modest improvements in performance, suggesting that adult AP learning is difficult and that near-perfect levels of AP may only be achievable by subset of adults. Overall, these results demonstrate that explicit perceptual training in some adults can lead to AP performance that is behaviorally indistinguishable from AP that manifests within a critical period of development. Implications for theories of AP acquisition are discussed.

What the [bleep]? Enhanced absolute pitch memory for a 1000Hz sine tone

Many individuals are able to perceive when the tuning of familiar stimuli, such as popular music recordings, has been altered. This suggests a kind of ubiquitous pitch memory, though it is unclear how this ability differs across individuals with and without absolute pitch (AP) and whether it plays any role in AP. In the present study, we take advantage of a salient single frequency - the 1000Hz sine tone used to censor taboo words in broadcast media - to assess the nature of this kind of pitch memory across individuals with and without AP. We show that non-AP participants are accurate at selecting the correct version of the censor tone among incorrect versions shifted by either one or two semitones, though their accuracy was still below that of an AP population (Experiment 1). This suggests a benefit for AP listeners that could be due to the use of explicit note categories or greater amounts of musical training. However, AP possessors still outperformed all non-AP participants when incorrect versions of the censor tone were shifted within a note category, even when controlling for musical experience (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that AP listeners did not appear to possess a category label for the censor tone that could have helped them differentiate the censor tones used in Experiment 2. Overall, these results suggest that AP possessors may have better pitch memory, even when divorced from pitch labeling (note categories). As such, these results have implications for how AP may develop and be maintained.

Defining the biological bases of individual differences in musicality

Advances in molecular technologies make it possible to pinpoint genomic factors associated with complex human traits. For cognition and behaviour, identification of underlying genes provides new entry points for deciphering the key neurobiological pathways. In the past decade, the search for genetic correlates of musicality has gained traction. Reports have documented familial clustering for different extremes of ability, including amusia and absolute pitch (AP), with twin studies demonstrating high heritability for some music-related skills, such as pitch perception. Certain chromosomal regions have been linked to AP and musical aptitude, while individual candidate genes have been investigated in relation to aptitude and creativity. Most recently, researchers in this field started performing genome-wide association scans. Thus far, studies have been hampered by relatively small sample sizes and limitations in defining components of musicality, including an emphasis on skills that can only be assessed in trained musicians. With opportunities to administer standardized aptitude tests online, systematic large-scale assessment of musical abilities is now feasible, an important step towards high-powered genome-wide screens. Here, we offer a synthesis of existing literatures and outline concrete suggestions for the development of comprehensive operational tools for the analysis of musical phenotypes.