Tonal Perception Thresholds and Pitch Identification by Absolute Pitch Possessors Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb 1 Dr. Janina Fyk 2 1 The University of Texas at San Antonio and Northwestern University (Fall 2001) 2 Zielona Gora, Poland

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition2 Everything is Relative “Father had absolute pitch,” as men say. But it seemed to disturb him; he seemed half ashamed of it. “Everything is relative,” he said,” Nothing but fools and taxes are absolute.” —Charles Ives (1969, p. 111) cited in Costall (1985)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition3 Research Questions 1. Using “real” piano tones, what is the threshold duration required for the consistently accurate identification of pitches by AP Possessors? 2. Is there a relationship between established threshold and frequency? 3. Does Response Time vary in an interpretable manner in relation to either (or both) frequency and/or duration?

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition4 Defining Absolute Pitch (AP) vs. Relative Pitch AP - “The ability to identify the pitch of a musical tone or produce a musical tone at a given pitch without the use of an external reference pitch.” (Takeuchi & Hulse, 1993) Passive Absolute Pitch (PAP) vs. Active Absolute Pitch (AAP); Kries (1892), Abraham (1901), Köhler (1910), Teplov (1947), Jourdain (1997) PAP – the ability to recognize & name a heard pitch AAP – the ability to sing (or otherwise produce) the pitch of a given tone RP – the ability to identify a pitch by identifying the pitch distance between consecutive and/or simultaneous tones in relation to a pitch reference

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition5 The Genesis of AP: Proposed Theories Innate/genetic – Stumpf (1890), Kries, (1892), Abraham (1901), Revesz (1913), Bachem (1937) Learned – Meyer (1899), Oakes (1951), Cuddy (1968), Brady (1970) “imprinting” – Copp (1916) claimed that 80% of young children can be taught to produce Middle C Unlearning – Abraham (1901), Watt (1917) Convergence (synergy) – Jeffres (1962), Ward (1963), Baharloo, et al. (1998)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition6 AP is Not “All or Nothing” Relative Principal of Disposition (Franklin, 1972, pp ) AAP & PAP Including special case of timbre dependent AP, e.g., Butler’s (1992) “absolute piano” Standard note pitch – the ability to remember a select pitch Regional pitch – the ability to roughly assess the frequency range within which the tone lies Relative Pitch

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition7 Varying Accuracy of AP Miyazaki’s (1988) Categories Level of Accuracy Precise AP (~85-100%) Imprecise AP (~45-85%) Non-AP (0-45%)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition8 Varying Accuracy of AP white keys vs. black keys Miyazaki (1988, 1990), Takehuchi and Hulse (1991) White keys (“diatonic”) identified at a higher level of accuracy than black keys (“chromatic”)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition9 Thresholds for AP Identification Piazza & Giulio (1982, 1983) Hz Hz Fyk (1985) , 220, 440, & 1000 Hz Vocalize matching pitch Fyk (1987) Hz Tuning tone generator (3 training sessions)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition10 AP as Liability As in all categorization tasks, some information is lost (Burns & Ward, 1974, 1978, 1982) Can cause more difficulty in identification of mistuned intervals Appear to be less flexible … less able to “learn” a scale utilizing a varied tuning system (Cuddy, 1977; Ward & Burns, 1982) Tend to adhere to reliance on AP even when performing RP task, may have strongly developed sense of reliance to the detriment of RP (Miyazaki, 1992)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition11 Research Questions 1. Using “real” piano tones, what is the threshold duration required for the consistently accurate identification of pitches by AP Possessors? 2. Is there a relationship between established threshold and frequency? 3. Does Response Time vary in an interpretable manner in relation to either (or both) frequency and/or duration?

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition12 Alternative Hypotheses 1. Threshold unknown for natural instrument timbres; anticipate duration will need to be longer than previous research suggests – Time to reach Sustain level of amplitude envelope (ADSR) – Non-periodic aspects of onset 2. Yes, shorter durations will be required for AP possessors to identify high frequency tones. Number of cycles that occur 3. Yes, shorter RT for longer tones More certainty concerning pitch

Method

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition14 Method Subjects – 4 highly-trained musicians possessing AP; all were skilled pianists Procedure: FamiliarizeFamiliarize with brief tones (exploratory) Warm-up procedure 12 stimuli 2 randomly selected pitches for each duration except 5ms; each pitch class occurred one time Main Experiment 91 stimuli (random presentation order) 13 piano tones (C4 to C5) 7 durations (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 ms) Hear tone, identify, press key, 15 sec delay w/distracter midway … repeat for remaining stimuli

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition15 Stimulus Choice (debate) Ward & Burns (1982) state that AP stimuli “should not involve extraneous cues” (p. 436); later conclude that “one should use for the study of AP only pure tone stimuli” (p. 438) Complex stimuli consist of “several pitches” Other research suggests that the complexity of piano tones assist in AP idenfication tasks; Ward (1963), Cuddy (1968), Terhardt & Seewan, (1983) Ecological validity important to this investigation, so used piano tones

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition16 Stimulus Preparation Digital Recording (16-bit, 44.1 KHz) of Yamaha grand piano in UTSA recital hall Captured 2.5 to 3 sec. tones from C4 – C5 Identify initial attack (subjective) Locate “0-crossing” closest to 35ms mark, then delete remainder of file Create shorter durations by deleting 5 ms from end of file Once again, using 0-crossing Example

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition17 Stimulus Example (C4) Complete Tone 5 ms10 ms15 ms20 ms25 ms30 ms35 ms

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition18 Distracter Gliding Tonal Cluster Purpose is to erase/confuse (Butler & Ward, 1988) Consisted of: White keys from G3 to G4, pitch shifted down Black keys from G#3 to F#4, pitch shifted up Heavy modulation Hear Distracter

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition19 Response Mechanism IMR Lab

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition20 Response Mechanism IMR Lab

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition21 Response Mechanism “Prepared Keyboard”

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition22 Response Mechanism “Prepared Keyboard” ASCII code for pressed key saved for later analysis

Results

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition25 Number of Correct Responses By Age (almost)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition26 Number of Correct Responses

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition27 Number of Correct Responses Black Keys vs. White Keys F Penta- tonic

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition28 Mean Error Range (ABS) Shorter durations exhibit larger errors Lower pitches result in larger errors

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition29 Response Time

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition30 Response Time

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition31 Research Questions Answered 1. Using “real” piano tones, what is the threshold duration required for the consistently accurate identification of pitches by AP Possessors? Unable to determine from this study … need to include stimuli with longer durations 2. Is there a relationship between established threshold and frequency? Yes … needs further investigation with modified stim set 3. Does Response Time vary in an interpretable manner in relation to either (or both) frequency and/or duration? Yes … needs further investigation with modified stim set

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition32 Future Directions Larger N Use pre-test to confirm level of AP Necessary to increase durations of natural piano tones to ensure higher level of accuracy Establish baseline for RT by using “press” command Rethink distracter Intent to “erase” may have served to confirm tonality; quarter-tone or altered tuning system

Contact Info Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb Associate Professor Institute for Music Research The University of Texas at San Antonio Northwestern University (Fall 2001)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition34 Identify Initial Attack

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition35 Identify Initial Attack (Zoom 1)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition36 Identify Initial Attack (Zoom 3)

August 9, 2001 Society for Music Perception & Cognition37 Identify Initial Attack Return