On drawing a line through the spectrogram: how do we understand deficits of vocal pitch imitation?

Abstract

In recent years there has been a remarkable increase in research focusing on deficits of pitch production in singing. A critical concern has been the identification of “poor pitch singers,” which we refer to more generally as individuals having a “vocal pitch imitation deficit.” The present paper includes a critical assessment of the assumption that vocal pitch imitation abilities can be treated as a dichotomy. Though this practice may be useful for data analysis and may be necessary within educational practice, we argue that this approach is complicated by a series of problems. Moreover, we argue that a more informative (and less problematic) approach comes from analyzing vocal pitch imitation abilities on a continuum, referred to as effect magnitude regression, and offer examples concerning how researchers may analyze data using this approach. We also argue that the understanding of this deficit may be better served by focusing on the effects of experimental manipulations on different individuals, rather than attempt to treat values of individual measures, and isolated tasks, as absolute measures of ability.

Layman versus Professional Musician: Who Makes the Better Judge?

“…Recent literature shows the progress that has been made to incorporate this diversity and also strives to more accurately describe musical competences (see [ 56 ] for a review). However, categorization of competence in singing and evaluation of singing voices is not a simple endeavor [ 74 ], a notion the results of the present paper support. In light of the many possible facets and definitions of musical expertise, a valid musical skills test or questionnaire that does not entirely rely on the commonly employed criteria (music education, music as a professional activity) would be a highly desirable tool in this line of research.…”

The effect of repeated attempts and test-retest reliability in children’s singing accuracy

“…Singing accuracy may be a normally distributed skill (Dalla Bella, 2015; Pfordresher & Larrouy-Maestri, 2015). Tests scores do not have to have a normal distribution, and many tests do not (Allen & Yen, 2001).…”

Pitch Imitation Ability in Mental Transformations of Melodies

“…Cuddy, Balkwill, Peretz, & Holden, 2005). Although most of these individuals may be underestimating their ability, nevertheless, a sizable minority (possibly 19%) misproduce pitch by more than a semitone on average (Pfordresher & Larrouy-Maestri, 2015, but see also Berkowska & Dalla-Bella, 2013;Hutchins & Peretz, 2012). The present research is part of an attempt to understand why certain people exhibit this vocal pitch imitation deficit (VPID), and the mechanisms that contribute to vocal imitation.…”

“…If the results in Figure 3A are a byproduct of participants performing at chance, one should not see a gradual change in the transformation effect with overall performance. This analysis further serves the purposes of addressing the fact that variability within groups may reflect a meaningful continuum of performance (Pfordresher & Larrouy-Maestri, 2015). Figure 3B shows the relationship between the transformation effect in production trials and overall pitch error rates.…”