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Tonal Perception Thresholds and Pitch Identification by Absolute Pitch Possessors

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. Everything is Relative.

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Tonal Perception Thresholds and Pitch Identification by Absolute Pitch Possessors

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  1. Tonal Perception Thresholds and Pitch Identification by Absolute Pitch Possessors Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb1 Dr. Janina Fyk2 1The University of Texas at San Antonio and Northwestern University (Fall 2001) 2Zielona Gora, Poland

  2. 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) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

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

  4. 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  5. 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) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  6. AP is Not “All or Nothing” • Relative Principal of Disposition (Franklin, 1972, pp. 27-28) • 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  7. Varying Accuracy of APMiyazaki’s (1988) Categories • Level of Accuracy • Precise AP (~85-100%) • Imprecise AP (~45-85%) • Non-AP (0-45%) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  8. Varying Accuracy of APwhite 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”) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  9. Thresholds for AP Identification • Piazza & Giulio (1982, 1983) • 60 ms @ 50 Hz • 10 ms @ 1000 Hz • Fyk (1985) • 9-24 ms @ 110, 220, 440, & 1000 Hz • Vocalize matching pitch • Fyk (1987) • 6 ms @ 1000 Hz • Tuning tone generator (3 training sessions) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

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

  11. Alternative Hypotheses • 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 • Yes, shorter durations will be required for AP possessors to identify high frequency tones. • Number of cycles that occur • Yes, shorter RT for longer tones • More certainty concerning pitch Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  12. Method

  13. Method • Subjects – 4 highly-trained musicians possessing AP; all were skilled pianists • Procedure: • Familiarize 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  14. 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  15. 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  16. Stimulus Example (C4) Complete Tone 5 ms 10 ms 15 ms 20 ms 25 ms 30 ms 35 ms Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  17. DistracterGliding 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  18. Response MechanismIMR Lab Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  19. Response MechanismIMR Lab Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  20. Response Mechanism“Prepared Keyboard” Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  21. Response Mechanism“Prepared Keyboard” ASCII code for pressed key saved for later analysis Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  22. Results

  23. Results

  24. Number of Correct Responses By Age (almost) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  25. Number of Correct Responses Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  26. Number of Correct Responses Black Keys vs. White Keys F Penta-tonic Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  27. Mean Error Range (ABS) Shorter durations exhibit larger errors Lower pitches result in larger errors Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  28. Response Time Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  29. Response Time Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  30. Research Questions Answered • 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 • Is there a relationship between established threshold and frequency? • Yes … needs further investigation with modified stim set • 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  31. 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 Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  32. Contact Info Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb Associate Professor Institute for Music Research The University of Texas at San Antonio Northwestern University (Fall 2001) lipscomb@utsa.edu http://imr.utsa.edu/lipscomb/

  33. Identify Initial Attack Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  34. Identify Initial Attack(Zoom 1) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  35. Identify Initial Attack(Zoom 3) Society for Music Perception & Cognition

  36. Identify Initial Attack Return Society for Music Perception & Cognition

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