Gußmack, M. B., Vitouch, O., & Gula, B. (2006). Latent absolute pitch: An ordinary ability? In M. Baroni, A. R. Addessi, R. Caterina & M. Costa (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9 th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition (pp. 1408-1412; CD-ROM; ISBN 88-7395-155-4). Bologna, : Bononia University Press.

Latent absolute pitch: An ordinary ability?

Manuela B. Gußmack Oliver Vitouch Bartosz Gula Cognitive Unit Cognitive Psychology Unit Cognitive Psychology Unit (CPU), Dept. of Psychology, (CPU), Dept. of Psychology, (CPU), Dept. of Psychology, , University of Klagenfurt, Austria University of Klagenfurt, Austria [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

ABSTRACT 4. Results Students with and without piano playing experience 1. Background showed significant, and significantly different, recognition Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify pitches without scores of 67 % (M = 9.3 out of 14, SD = 1.95; effect size a reference tone. The related phenomenon of (passive) "ab- delta = 1.2) and 59 % (M = 8.2, SD = 2.2; delta = 0.6), solute tonality" (e. g., Terhardt & Seewann, 1983; Schel- respectively. Results were highly convergent with the find- lenberg & Trehub, 2003) is the ability to discriminate be- ings of Vitouch & Gaugusch (2000), with correspondence tween the original key of a musical piece and exact trans- even at the group-specific effect size level. positions of it. Absolute tonality seems to be more wide- spread than traditionally assumed. Generally, all-or-none 5. Conclusions models of absolute pitch are increasingly being replaced by Our findings are in line with the results of Schellenberg & a continuum view. Trehub (2003). They lend strong support to the view that latent forms of AP are widespread, at least among amateur 2. Aims musicians, and that the rudimentary ability of absolute With a new design, Vitouch & Gaugusch (2000) found that tonality is modulated by (early?) music experience. high school students (amateur musicians) without AP were significantly able to distinguish an original piece from even Keywords a one-semitone transposition. The aim of the present study was an independent, modified and extended replication of Absolute pitch, absolute tonality, key recognition, pitch this finding. perception, memory for pitch 3. Method Eighty-three high school students (41 with active piano INTRODUCTION experience), all non-possessors of AP, listened to the be- Subjects with absolute pitch are able to identify and label ginning of Beethoven’s "For Elise". The piece was pre- isolated pitches (e.g. “c”). In the literature this special per- sented via headphones on 14 consecutive days (one trial formance is given a 1 : 10.000 probability of incidence per day), either in the original key (A minor) or as a "digi- among non-musicians (Bachem, 1955; Takeuchi & Hulse, tal twin" in Ab minor, in a double-blind design. Pieces 1993; Chin, 2003; Vitouch, 2005). Despite of a long re- were identical except for pitch (MIDI transposition). Sub- search tradition, issues of genesis and learnability are still jects had to judge if they heard the original key or not. The unsolved. 24-hours inter-trial interval served as a rigorous method of Other than normal people and professional or amateur mu- memory interference. sicians, AP listeners seem to pay less attention to tone height, chords, and intervals but rather to the so-called tone chroma or tone quality which is a special sound characteris-

tic common in all pitches with the same label (e.g. “c”). Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Music Perception & Thus, for AP listeners the discrimination between the tones Cognition (ICMPC9). ©2006 The Society for Music Perception & Cog- “c” and “d” seems less difficult than between “c” and “c1” nition (SMPC) and European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of (one octave above). In research, apart from these typical Music (ESCOM). Copyright of the content of an individual paper is held by the primary (first-named) author of that paper. All rights re- and therefore largely ignored octave errors, there typically served. No paper from this proceedings may be reproduced or transmit- is an error tolerance of one semitone (cf. Abraham, 1901). ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including Due to its supposed rarity, absolute pitch in this perfect photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval systems, with- form was hypothesized to be an innate ability (Stumpf, out permission in writing from the paper's primary author. No other part of this proceedings may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by 1883). With Meyer’s (1899) impressive study regarding a any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, re- possible learnability of absolute pitch an intensive debate cording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in was initiated between geneticists and proponents of learning writing from SMPC and ESCOM. ICMPC9 – International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition - Proceedings theory. Finally, thanks to recent neuroscientific research felder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) to guarantee a power of (Schlaug et al., 1995a, 1995b, 2001; Preis et al., 1999; 0.75 at the effect size of Cohen’s d = 0.5. Keenan et al., 2001; Ohnishi et al., 2001) the formerly strict Actually, 83 students (57 female, 26 male) at two Carin- borders between the opposed groups are increasingly re- thian high schools with a mean age of M = 16.5 years could placed by mutual concessions. be recruited for participation (motivationally supported by a Despite many typologies regarding assumed subtypes, vari- lottery game for participants). At the beginning of the study, ous grades of accuracy, and potential learnability, impres- musical experience (singing or instrumental lessons) and sive identification and production abilities remain which music activities (choir, ensembles) were assessed by means cannot be wholly explained by the criteria of absolute pitch of a questionnaire. Among all participants there were 41 or possible related subtypes. One such phenomenon is the persons with and 42 without piano playing experience as so-called (passive) absolute tonality (cf. Vitouch, 2005) well as 16 non-musicians, i.e. persons without any relevant denoting the discrimination between a musical composition musical knowledge. The participants had an average musi- in the original key and exact transpositions of it (Terhardt cal experiences of M = 7.1 years, with a range of 0-21 & Ward, 1982; Terhardt & Seewann, 1983; Schellenberg & years. The “musicians” and “pianists” had started with their Trehub, 2003). musical education at a mean age of M = 8.1 and M = 8.9 Based on Terhardt & Seewann (1983), Vitouch & Gau- years, respectively. gusch (2000) tested 52 subjects without AP (31 persons In order to guarantee the subjects’ maximal attention, the with piano experience) using the prelude in C-major from stimulus was presented in an isolated test atmosphere via Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier . In a ran- portable CD player and closed headphones. In both schools, dom sequence on 14 consecutive days the composition was small and separated rooms were used for testing. presented 7 times each either in the original key (C major) In a random sequence, which was identical for all subjects or digitally transposed to C-sharp major. The 24-hours in- and created by a third independent person, the students ter-stimulus interval (ISI) served as a rigorous short-term heard the musical piece For Elise on 14 consecutive days 7 memory interference condition. The presentation in C major times each in the original key (A minor) and in the form of and C-sharp major was used to assure the minimal differ- an exact digital MIDI transposition (A-flat minor). Just as ence in pitch (one semitone) and the maximal difference in in Vitouch & Gaugusch (2000) a 24-hours ISI was used to tone quality ( key-distance effect , cf. Bartlett & Dowling, achieve reliable working memory decay. 1980; Takeuchi & Hulse, 1992; Takeuchi, 1994; van Eg- After each presentation the subjects had to write down their mond & Povel, 1994). The results demonstrated significant subjective certainty of decision on the response sheet (1 = recognition scores of 59% for the whole sample ( M = 8.2; absolutely confident, 5 = very insecure). Furthermore, they SD = 1.8; effect size Cohen’s d = 0.7) and of 62% for the were free to give a written explanation of their decision group of pianists ( M = 8.68; SD = 1.49; d = 1.13). strategy used in this particular trial. The current research project represents a methodologically re-designed and extended replication study. RESULTS Data analysis was conducted by means SPSS (v12.0). The METHOD sample of N = 83 subjects demonstrated a recognition per- Based on Vitouch & Gaugusch (2000) the following parts formance of 63% ( M = 8.8; SD = 2.12; effect size Cohen’s of the study design were positively revised: d = 0.83), which with [t (82) = 7.55, p =.000 < 0.05] was • Double-blind design significantly above chance level (7 correct judgments or • Usage of a composition which is not in the familiar key 50%). In the subgroups of 41 pianists (67%; M = 9.3; SD = of C major 1.95; p = .000 < 0.05; d = 1.2) and 42 non-pianists (59%; M • Balanced sample sizes of pianists and non-pianists = 8.2; SD = 2.2; p = .001 < 0.05; d = 0.6) we found signifi- cant, and significantly different, recognition scores [be- For the purpose of good comparability, another well-known tween-groups t (81) = 2.44; p = .017 < 0.05]. The subgroup piano composition, Ludwig van Beethoven’s For Elise of 16 non-musicians showed performance at chance level (WoO59), was selected as the musical stimulus. The par- (M = 7.2; SD = 2.0; p = .718 > 0.05). ticipants only heard the beginning of the musical piece which was 37 seconds in length. By means of digital MIDI A significant correlation (Pearson) was evident between the transposition, the piece, which originally is in A minor, was musical experience in years and the recognition score ( r = transposed to A-flat minor, creating a “digital twin” only .243, p = .013), but there were no substantial correlations differing in pitch. Thus, in this study there again was a regarding the onset of musical education, i.e. the age sub- minimal difference in pitch together with a maximal key- jects had started with their music or instrumental lessons ( r distance effect. = .09, p = 0.28). Comparing the first (trial 1) with the last trial (trial 14), a significant learning effect was revealed [t At the beginning of the study the ideal sample size of 88 (82) = 3.37; p = .001 < 0.05]. subjects was calculated by means of a power analysis (Erd-

ICMPC9 – International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition - Proceedings

Figure 1 : Performance of subjects with and without piano playing experience in the key recognition task (studies pooled)

The results are highly convergent with the findings of Vi- technical properties of the setup grant that such strategies touch & Gaugusch (2000), with correspondence even at the can only exploit pitch information . This leads to the inter- group-specific effect size level. In the pooled sample of 135 pretation of absolute key recognition being a latent form of subjects (Figure 1), the difference in the recognition per- AP modulated by (early?) musical experience. formance of pianists ( M = 9.0 or 64 % hits, SD = 3.2; The non-significant performance of the non-musicians can- Cohens d = 0.6) and non-pianists ( M = 8.0 or 57 % hits, SD not be properly interpreted due to the small sample size ( n = 4.5; Cohens d = 0.2) becomes strongly evident ( t (133) = = 16), and therefore leaves the question open if there really 3.19, p < .002 ). is no absolute key recognition or absolute tonality in people CONCLUSIONS without musical experience. Alternatively, their poor rec- ognition scores may be a result of the used musical mate- In both studies (Vitouch & Gaugusch, 2000, and the current rial, as non-musicians presumably show less interest in clas- sample and design), the tested 135 subjects showed a re- sical music compared to musicians and pianists. This ques- markable recognition performance, which is striking in con- tion remains to be clarified in a fair comparison with more sideration of the fact that the musical stimuli (original key popular stimuli, such as well-known pop songs (Levitin, vs. exact transposition) differed by just one semitone (C 1994) or TV jingles (Schröger, Kaernbach, & Schönwies- major vs. C-sharp major and A minor vs. A-flat minor, re- ner, 2002; Schellenberg & Trehub, 2003). spectively). This indeed speaks for “latent absolute pitch” performance similar to what Schellenberg & Trehub (2003) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS found, and for “absolute tonality” being a phenomenon with I would like to express my special thanks to Oliver Vitouch AP-like properties at least at the objective performance and Bartosz Gula for being reliable guides throughout and level. beyond this scientific research. Between-groups differences in recognition scores (pianists, non-pianists and non-musicians) are supposed to depend on REFERENCES the musical background, which presumably allowed “musi- cians” to develop and adopt specific listening strategies in Abraham, O. (1901). Das absolute Tonbewusstsein [Abso- order to manage the task. However, the design and the lute consciousness for tones]. Sammelbände der Internatio- nalen Musikgesellschaft , 3, 1-86. ICMPC9 – International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition - Proceedings

Bachem, A. (1937). Various types of absolute pitch. Jour- Schlaug, G. (2001). The brain of musicians: A model for nal of the Acoustical Society of America , 9, 146-151. functional and structural adaptation. In R. J. Zatorre & I. Peretz (Eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sci- Bachem, A. (1955). Absolute pitch. Journal of the Acousti- ences, Vol. 930: The biological foundations of music (pp. cal Society of America , 27 , 1180-1185. 281-299). New York: Rockefeller University. Bartlett, J. C., & Dowling, W. J. (1980). Recognition of Schlaug, G., Jäncke, L., Huang, Y., & Steinmetz, H. transposed melodies: A key-distance effect in developmen- (1995a). In vivo evidence of structural brain asymmetry in tal perspective. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Hu- Science 267 man Perception and Performance, 6, 501-515. musicians. , , 699-701. Schlaug, G., Jäncke, L., Huang, Y., Staiger, J., & Stein- Chin, C. S. (2003). The development of absolute pitch: A metz, H. (1995b). Increased corpus callosum size in musi- theory concerning the roles of music training at an early Neuropsychologia 33 developmental age and individual cognitive style. Psychol- cians. , , 1047-1055. ogy of Music , 31, 155-171. Schröger, E., Kaernbach, C., & Schönwiesner, M. (2002). Auditive Wahrnehmung und multisensorische Verarbeitung Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behav- ioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum As- [Auditive perception and multi-sensory processing]. In J. Müsseler & W. Prinz (Ed.), Allgemeine Psychologie (pp. sociates. 67-117). Heidelberg, : Spektrum. Egmond, R. v., & Povel, D.-J. (1994). Factors in the recog- Stumpf, C. (1883). Tonpsychologie [Psychology of tones] nition of transposed melodies: A comment on Takeuchi & (Vol. 1). Leipzig, Germany: S. Hirzel. Hulse. Music Perception , 12 , 137-142. Takeuchi, A. H. (1994). More on key-distance effects in Erdfelder, E., Faul, F., & Buchner, A. (1996). GPOWER: A melody recognition: A response to van Egmond and Povel. general power analysis program. Behavior Research Meth- Music Perception , 12 , 143-146. ods, Instruments & Computers , 28, 1-11. Takeuchi, A. H., & Hulse, S. H. (1992). Key-distance ef- Keenan, J. P., Thangaraj, V., Halpern, A. R., & Schlaug, G. fects in melody recognition reexamined. Music Perception , (2001). Absolute pitch and planum temporale. NeuroImage , 10 , 1-24. 14 , 1402-1408. Levitin, D. J. (1994). Absolute memory for musical pitch: Takeuchi, A. H., & Hulse, S. H. (1993). Absolute pitch. Evidence from the production of learned melodies. Percep- Psychological Bulletin , 113 , 345-361. tion & Psychophysics , 56 , 414-423. Terhardt, E., & Seewann, M. (1983). Aural key identifica- Meyer, M. (1899). Is the memory of absolute pitch capable tion and its relationship to absolute pitch. Music Percep- of development by training? Psychological Review , 6, 514- tion , 1, 63-83. 516. Terhardt, E., & Ward, W. D. (1982). Recognition of musi- Miyazaki, K. (1993). Absolute pitch as an inability: Identi- cal key: Exploratory study. Journal of the Acoustical Soci- fication of musical intervals in a tonal context. Music Per- ety of America , 72 , 26-33. ception , 11 , 55-72. Vitouch, O. (2005). Absolutes Gehör [Absolute pitch]. In Ohnishi, T., Matsuda, H., Asada, T., Aruga, M., Hirakata, T. H. Stoffer & R. Oerter (Eds.), Allgemeine Musikpsycho- M., Nishikawa, M., Katoh, A., & Imabayashi, E. (2001). logie (Enzyklopädie der Psychologie, Vol. D/VII/1, pp. Functional anatomy of musical perception in musicians. 717-766). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Cerebral Cortex , 11 , 754-760. Vitouch, O., & Gaugusch, A. (2000). Absolute recognition Preis, S., Jäncke, L., Schmitz-Hillebrecht, J., & Steinmetz, of musical keys in non-absolute-pitch-possessors. In C. H. (1999). Child age and planum temporale asymmetry. Woods, G. Luck, R. Brochard, F. Seddon & J. A. Sloboda th Brain and Cognition , 40 , 441-452. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition [CD-ROM]. Keele, UK: Révész, G. (1946). Einführung in die Musikpsychologie Dept. of Psychology, Keele University. [Introduction to music psychology] . Bern, : A. Francke. Wellek, A. (1970). Das absolute Gehör und seine Typen [Absolute pitch and its types] (2nd ed.). Bern, Switzerland: Schellenberg, E. G., & Trehub, S. E. (2003). Good pitch Francke. memory is widespread. Psychological Science , 14 , 262- 266.