Absolute pitch (AP) is the rare ability to name any musical note without the use of a reference note. Given that genuine AP representations are based on the identification of isolated notes by their tone chroma, they are considered to be invariant to (1) surrounding tonal context, (2) changes in instrumental timbre, and (3) changes in octave register. However, there is considerable variability in the literature in terms of how AP is trained and tested along these dimensions, making recent claims about AP learning difficult to assess. Here, we examined the effect of tonal context on participant success with a single-note identification training paradigm, including how learning generalized to an untested instrument and octave. We found that participants were able to rapidly learn to distinguish C from other notes, with and without feedback and regardless of the tonal context in which C was presented. Participants were also able to partly generalize this skill to an untrained instrument. However, participants displayed the weakest generalization in recognizing C in a higher octave. The results indicate that participants were likely attending to pitch height in addition to pitch chroma - a conjecture that was supported by analyzing the pattern of response errors. These findings highlight the complex nature of note representation in AP, which requires note identification across contexts, going beyond the simple storage of a note fundamental. The importance of standardizing testing that spans both timbre and octave in assessing AP, as well as further implications on past literature and future work are discussed.
Most listeners can determine when a familiar recording of music has been shifted in musical key by as little as one semitone (e.g., from B to C major). However, it is unclear how this form of pitch memory relates to absolute pitch (AP) representations, which are based on pitch chroma. This is because listeners could use spectral cues from the familiar instrumentation of the original recordings or strategies based on pitch height (e.g., relying on a feeling that an incorrect recording sounds “too high” or “too low”) to determine when a familiar recording has been shifted in pitch. Neither of these strategies would require the kind of understanding of pitch chroma or musical key associated with AP. The present experiments thus assessed whether listeners could make accurate absolute pitch judgments when listening to novel renditions of these familiar melodies, differing from the iconic recording in complexity and timbre (Experiment 1) or timbre and octave (Experiment 2). These experiments eliminate the possibility of reliance on spectral cues and pitch height, respectively. Listeners in both experiments selected the correct-key version of the familiar melody at rates that were significantly above chance. These results fit within a growing body of research supporting the idea that most listeners, regardless of formal musical training, have robust representations of absolute pitch - based on pitch chroma - that generalize to novel listening situations. Implications for theories of auditory pitch memory are discussed.
Most listeners exhibit absolute pitch memory for familiar pitched sounds, ranging from simple tones (e.g., the censor “bleep”) to rich, polyphonic melodies (e.g., excerpts from popular songs). Given that relative pitch is the predominant means of processing music for most listeners, this observed absolute pitch memory suggests that most listeners have hybrid representations, containing both absolute and relative pitch cues. The present experiment assesses how relative pitch cues influence absolute pitch memory in a variety of listening contexts, varying in terms of ecological validity. Participants were asked to explicitly judge different musical sounds (isolated notes, chords, scales, and short excerpts), varying in complexity, in terms of absolute tuning (i.e., whether the sound was “in tune” or “out of tune”). Listeners showed robust above-chance performance in judging absolute tuning when the to-be-judged sounds did not contain relative pitch changes (i.e., isolated notes and chords), replicating prior work. Critically, however, performance was significantly reduced and was not statistically different from chance when the musical sounds contained relative pitch changes (scales and short excerpts). Taken together, the results suggest that most listeners possess some long-term memory for absolute tuning, but this ability has limited generalizability to more ecologically valid musical contexts that contain relative pitch changes.
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