Research On The Music Processing Ability Of Absolute Pitch

The evolutionary origin of music has become a controversial topic since Darwin time. While nonadaptationist theories propose that music might be a byproduct of other cognitive abilities, adaptationist theories argue that the human ability of music was the target of natural selection. An important evidence for the latter is that absolute pitch(AP), an ability to label an isolated musical note in the absence of a reference note, is associated with a specific genetic basis. In the domain of musical education, AP is often regarded as an indicator of success in music domain. This view is based on the fact that several world-class composers and performers are known to possess AP. This seems to be circular. Hence, the aim of the present study was to examine whether AP possessors would show the advantages of music perception.Based on the model of music perception, the present study examined music processing in AP from the low-level, middle-level to high-level so as to investigated whether or not the pitch labeling ability in AP would facilitate music processing at all levels. The present study contained two groups: AP and matched non-AP possessors. There were five experiments. Experiment 1 and experiment 2 investigated pitch change detection and pitch direction thresholds in AP. The results found no difference of perception thresholds in AP possessors and non-AP possessors, regardless of in pitch change detection threshold, or pitch direction threshold. Naming pitch not only includes the judgment of pitch letter, but also that of syllables of note in solfège. Experiment 3 thus further examined the judgment of syllables of note in solfège in AP, and the results showed that AP possessors exhibited reduced syllables of note judgment by showing poorer performance than non-AP possessors in either accuracy or reaction time in an implicit manner. Experiments 4 and 5 further investigated the perception and experience of musical tension in AP possessors, respectively. The results showed that there was no significant difference of processing musical tension between the AP and non-AP groups, either for perceived, or felt musical tension.These findings indicate that the advantage of pitch labeling do not facilitate musical pitch discrimination in AP possessors. In contrast, AP possessors performed worse on syllables of note judgment than non-AP possessors. These findings suggest the asymmetry of low-level pitch naming in AP. On the other hand, no matter in perceived or felt music tension, the AP group show comparable performance with the non-AP group. This implies that high-level musical processing is independent of the processing of low-level music processing. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time to examine the relation between AP and music processing by conducting a series of experiments. The findings provide further evidence to music education, but may not support musical adaptationist theories from a perspective of absolute pitch.