Date post: | 05-Apr-2018 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | marcos-almeida |
View: | 226 times |
Download: | 0 times |
of 17
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
1/17
The development of absolute pitch:a theory concerning the roles ofmusic training at an earlydevelopmental age and individualcognitive style
155A R T I C L E
Psychology of Music
Psychology of Music
Copyright
Society for Education,
Music and Psychology
Research
vol ():
[- ()
:; ; ]
C H R I S T I N A S . C H I NU NI VE RS IT Y O F C AL IF OR NI A AT S AN TA C RU Z
A B S T R A C T Absolute pitch (AP), the ability to identify or sing pitches without an
external reference, is apparently neither completely inherited nor completely
teachable. Based on AP research findings and the literature on cognitive
development and cognitive style, this article proposes that the reason why some
musicians have AP and others do not depends on both the developmental age at
which music instruction began and individual differences in cognitive style;
children who had a particular type of music training before the ages of 5 to 7
years, and who have a more analytical cognitive style, are most likely to develop
AP. In light of the proposed explanation, there is discussion of a possible
neurological correlate of AP in the brain, and of research on AP with individualswho are blind, have Williams syndrome, or are autistic. Some directions for
future research are suggested.
K E Y W O R D S : absolute pitch (AP), cognitive development, cognitive style
For the past century, the study of absolute pitch (AP) has fascinated music
researchers (for a review, see Takeuchi and Hulse, 1993). Despite all this
research, we still remain unable to explain why some musical people who
have AP can identify or sing pitches in isolation, and other musically talented
individuals cannot do this without some point of reference. Research on AP
continues to serve at least two purposes. Suppose that, from a theoretical
point of view, only 1 in 10,000 people could perceive color, and only a minor-
ity of trained people could perceive color by comparing the color they are
looking at to a card with a single color they use as a reference. We would be
curious to discover how these possessors of absolute color developed their
ability, as well as how relative color possessors developed their ability. From a
pragmatic point of view, research on AP is useful because the more we under-
stand AP, the better will we be able to educate musicians by developing an
sempre :
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
2/17
AP-appropriate curriculum as an alternative to current methods of music
education based on relative pitch (Rakowski,1 personal communication).
Perhaps the most valuable objectives to guide future research are the twin
goals of illuminating the development of absolute pitch and relative pitch,
both of which play critical roles in the creation and appreciation of music.While acknowledging the importance of this broader perspective, the goal of
this article is to address the development of AP.
In the same way that many musicians have strong opinions about the
merit or irrelevance of possessing AP, AP researchers sometimes make strong
value judgments regarding the possession of AP. At one extreme, some
geneticists (Profita and Bidder, 1988) employ the term perfect pitch, which
carries the connotation that it is an amazing talent. At the other extreme,
Parncutt and Levitin (in press) prefer to embrace a non-elitist view of AP by
using the term tone-AP in order to distinguish it from piece-AP, claimingthat the ability to recognize or sing a song in the correct key is a form of AP.
In this article, the traditional term AP possessor, as opposed to tone-APer,
will be used to refer to precise AP possessors who can name over 90 percent
of isolated pitches correctly, and imprecise AP possessors will be used to
refer to those who can name around 5090 percent of isolated pitches cor-
rectly. Instead of viewing AP as the privilege of a genetically endowed gift or
as a mere extension of ordinary memory, this article suggests that whether
possessing AP is helpful or a hindrance depends on the musical context.
Although AP can be an asset when memorizing music or performing atonal20th-century music, AP can also be a liability when transposing music or
working under mistuned conditions (Bachem, 1955; Crutchfield, 1990;
Miyazaki, 1995).
Whereas many genetic researchers believe there is a genetic condition that
is necessary, but not sufficient, for the development of AP (Baharloo et al.,
1998, 2000; Gregersen et al., 1999, 2000; Profita and Bidder, 1988), the
most recent comprehensive review of AP research supports a theory of early
learning, which is the idea that everyone has the potential to develop AP, but
only during a certain period in childhood. Younger children are more likely todevelop AP because they are developmentally predisposed to attend to the
absolute rather than the relative features of melodies, as well as to the
absolute rather than the relative features of information in domains other
than music, such as numbers, space and metaphor (Takeuchi and Hulse,
1993). Can these two differing viewpoints about the etiology of AP be recon-
ciled? The hereditary explanation of AP does not specify the nature of an
inherited potential ability to develop AP, nor does it give a reason why AP is
only acquired in childhood. The environmental explanation of AP specifies
why there is a critical period in childhood, but does not give a reason for whyall children who begin musical training at young enough ages do not neces-
sarily develop AP. This article offers the novel, parsimonious explanation that
individuals who tend to pay particular attention to each musical pitch, due to
156 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
3/17
their developmental age and due to their cognitive style, are more likely to
develop AP. In other words, AP is a cognitive ability that develops in indivi-
duals who are genetically predisposed to a particular cognitive style and are
also exposed to a certain kind of music training during a critical period in
their childhood.
The role of cognitive development in the development of absolute
pitch
Research from developmental psychology supports the idea that younger
children are more likely to develop AP because they have not yet undergone
a critical transition in their cognitive development. This transition was
originally called the transition from preoperational thought to concrete
operations by Piaget (1950), who specified that it took place between the agesof 7 and 8 years; subsequent research has resulted in shifting this window
downward to between the ages of 5 and 7 years (Case et al., 1996; Sameroff
and Haith, 1996). This transition has also been described as the transition
from thinking unidimensionally to multidimensionally (Siegler, 1996). Piaget
tested whether children had made the transition from preoperational thought
to concrete operations by giving them conservation tasks. The classic example
of a Piagetian conservation task that most children can perform for the first
time between the ages of 5 and 7 years involves understanding that a tall,
narrow glass can hold the same amount of liquid as a short, wide glass.Younger children tend to focus on only one dimension of the glasses height
and mistakenly conclude that the taller glass holds more; older children are
able to simultaneously think about height and width.
Preoperational children make the transition to concrete operations in the
domain of music when they progress from understanding only first-order
relations, i.e. associating a name with each pitch, to understanding second-
order relations, i.e. associating a name with each interval, which requires
associating two pitches with each other. For example, discerning pitch direc-
tion involves understanding second-order relations, or comparisons betweennotes. In a study of young children, most of the 3.5- to 4.5-year-olds only
understood pitch in an absolute sense and did not understand pitch direction,
whereas most of the 5-year-olds understood pitch direction (White et al.,
1990). Similarly, in a study of young childrens singing, the 3- to 4-year-olds
were more likely to sing exactly the same pitches they had been taught,
whereas 5- to 6-year-olds were less likely to sing in the same key in which
they had been taught (Sergeant and Roche, 1973). By transposing, the older
children in this study were more likely to demonstrate their understanding of
such musical concepts as melodic contour, interval size and tonal sense.Hargreaves (1996) has referred to this period, when children become able to
represent more than one musical dimension at a time in their drawings of
music (Davidson and Scripp, cited in Hargreaves, 1996), as the schematic
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 157
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
4/17
phase of the development of musical competence. Evidence that older chil-
dren have progressed through this phase, or achieved musical conservation,
is their successful performance on such tasks as maintaining key while
singing (Scott-Kassner, 1992) and recognizing transposed melodies (Bartlett
and Dowling, 1980). In non-music domains, older children are also able toreason in a much more sophisticated manner about such diverse concepts as
letters, numbers, narrative and space. When children experience the new-
found ability to integrate relational premise information (Halford, 1984)
between the ages of 5 and 7 years, they are undergoing a transition that has
also been referred to as progressing from formal representation to symbolic
representation (Bialystok, 1992), or merging two conceptual structures
(Case et al., 1996).
AP research supports the idea that a necessary factor in the development
of AP is music training in early childhood, before children have experiencedthe cognitive transition from thinking unidimensionally to thinking multidi-
mensionally. AP researchers from different disciplines, in three large surveys
and three smaller experimental studies, have found that individuals who
began music study at young ages are much more likely to have AP than indi-
viduals who started music study when older. A survey of over 2700 music
students (Gregersen et al., 1999) found that the mean age at which AP pos-
sessors began music activities was 5.4 years, whereas the mean age at which
non-AP students began music activities was 7.9 years. A survey of over 2000
musically educated college students and adults (Sergeant, 1969) found thatthe younger the mean age at which a group of musicians had started study-
ing music, the greater the proportion of musicians in that group with AP. In
groups of musicians who started studying music, on average, before 7 years
of age, over half possessed AP; for groups of musicians who started studying
music, on average, when older than 7 years of age, less than half possessed
AP. A survey of over 600 musicians (Baharloo et al., 1998) found that 31
percent of those who started studying music before the age of 7 had AP, but
only 5 percent of those who started studying music at the age of 7 years or
older had AP. With respect to the experimental studies, all 12 AP possessorsparticipating in a Canadian study, and most of the 6 imprecise AP possessors,
had started studying music at age 7 years or younger (Costa-Giomi et al.,
2001). All 12 AP possessors participating in a Japanese study, and nearly all
of the 10 imprecise AP possessors, had started piano lessons between the
ages of 3 and 5 years (Miyazaki, 1988). Similarly, all 11 AP possessors in
another Japanese study had started music lessons between the ages of 3 and
5 years, nearly all on the piano (Hirata et al., 1999).
Although research indicates that there may be a critical period for the
development of AP in typically developing children which ends between 5and 7 years of age, this critical period does not seem to exist for individuals with
Williams syndrome. Characteristics of Williams syndrome (which is known
to have a genetic basis) are strong language ability and high sociability, but
158 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
5/17
severely impaired spatial and other cognitive abilities. Many individuals with
Williams syndrome demonstrate an interest in music (Lenhoff et al., 2001b),
and have been observed to possess a good sense of rhythm (Levitin and
Bellugi, 1998). People with Williams syndrome do not appear to have a criti-
cal period for the development of AP ending between 5 and 7 years of age,because they do not necessarily experience a cognitive shift at those ages.
Instead, individuals with Williams syndrome, a group whose average IQ is
about 55 (Wang, cited in Lenhoff et al., 2001a), may be similar mentally to
typically developing young children in having limited working memory.
Therefore, possessing AP, a long-term memory for pitches, can give both
typically developing young children and individuals with low IQs an advan-
tage in processing one aspect of music pitch. Although most people with
Williams syndrome who participate in musical activities learn by listening
and do not learn note names or how to read music, a study of five musicalindividuals with Williams syndrome who did know note names found that
they all had precise AP. Of relevance here is that the authors concluded the
window of opportunity for the development of AP open to normal individu-
als up to the age of 6 . . . is extended in individuals with Williams syndrome
(Lenhoff et al., 2001a: 500). Only one participant began music study at the
relatively young age of 5 years; the other four participants began music study
at ages 7, 8, 10 and 11 years. In fact, the participant who began music
lessons at age 11 years did not learn to name notes until 42 years old.
According to this study, individuals with Williams syndrome are a goodexample of how developmental age i.e. mental age, not chronological age
may be related to the development of AP.
The role of early music training in the development of absolute
pitch
Despite the strong correlational evidence for the necessity of music training
at an early age for the development of AP, the type of music training that is
required has not been identified. Typically, AP possessors were not taught AP,but seem to have acquired their ability in the natural course of taking their
music lessons, and cannot explain how they came to have AP. Despite several
reports of successfully teaching preschool-aged children AP (Takeuchi and
Hulse, 1993), this feat is not easily replicated (Cohen and Baird, 1990).
Evidently, it is important to take advantage of a critical period in childhood in
order to develop AP (Takeuchi and Hulse, 1993) because highly motivated
adults have only been able to train imprecise AP in themselves (Brady, 1970;
Meyer, 1899; Rush, 1989). Levitin (1994) proposes that AP may consist of
two abilities pitch memory and pitch labelling speculating that we all havepitch memory to some degree but only AP possessors develop pitch labeling.
A broader interpretation of this explanation, which emphasizes the impor-
tance of labeling pitches, would be that people with AP may encode pitch
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 159
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
6/17
memories differently from other people, whether through use of a verbal label
or other cognitive strategy. AP possessors in Zatorre and Becketts (1989)
study reported using multiple strategies to encode pitches, i.e. fingering posi-
tions on their instruments and musical notation, as well as the letter names
of notes. Perhaps playing the piano or violin, or associating hand gestureswith singing do-re-mi, etc., in the Kodaly method (Brown, 1987), can help
young children encode pitches in multiple ways.
Playing the piano may most easily facilitate the development of AP in a
young child, who is able to map each pitch spatially onto its place in the key-
board. The piano probably plays an especially important role in the develop-
ment of AP, because some AP possessors can identify piano notes better than
pure tones (Baharloo et al., 1998; Lockhead and Byrd, 1981; Miyazaki,
1989); in fact, AP possessors have been found to identify white-key pitches
faster than black-key pitches (Miyazaki, 1989, 1990; Takeuchi and Hulse,1991). Unfortunately, AP studies often do not report participants instrumen-
tal background; however, a recent study of AP possessors and non-AP musi-
cians (Pantev et al., 1998) reported that the piano was a secondary instru-
ment for 8 out of the 11 non-pianists. If these woodwind and string players
were not atypical, and given that certain musical instruments (such as the
bassoon or double bass) are not accessible for young children to begin with as
their first instrument, it may be reasonable to assume that playing the piano
is critical for the early development of many instrumentalists. If young chil-
dren learning to play the piano are usually not encouraged to transpose, andtheir training often focuses on learning to sight-read music, then perhaps the
type of training commonly associated with playing the piano encourages
thinking in a framework conducive to the development of AP in certain indi-
viduals. For example, a study of over 1000 music students in the US found
that AP occurred at a greater rate in students of Asian descent (48%) than in
students of Caucasian descent (9%); as one possible factor, the authors note
the important fact that the Asian students were much more likely than
Caucasian students to have experienced early music training based on a fixed
do method, such as the Yamaha method or Royal College method (Gregersenet al., 2000).2
The role of cognitive style in the development of absolute pitch
A cognitive style is a general, non-conscious preference for processing infor-
mation in a particular way (Messick, 1994). Although the field of research
on cognitive style has a complex history, our discussion here is limited to indi-
vidual differences in field dependenceindependence and breadth of atten-
tion.3
It is the hypothesis of this article that individuals who are classified ashaving the field independent cognitive style, or tend to scan with narrow
attention, are more likely to develop AP.
160 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
7/17
FIELD DEPENDENCEINDEPENDENCEField independent individuals are characterized by their greater psychological
differentiation and the analytic tendency to take in information a piece at a
time, whereas field dependent individuals are characterized by their perceptu-
al tendency to be influenced by context. Field independent individuals caneasily restructure information, as measured by their higher scores on the
Embedded Figures Test (EFT), which requires overcoming salient misleading
stimuli in order to find a simple figure hidden in a complex picture (Witkin
and Goodenough, 1981).
This article proposes that field independent individuals are more likely to
focus on individual musical pitches than to focus on the musical context of
musical pitches, and thus field independent individuals are more likely to
develop AP than field dependent individuals. This hypothesis is supported by
the results of a recent study finding that AP possessors scored significantlyhigher than non-AP musicians and non-musicians on the Hidden Figure Test
(Costa-Giomi et al., 2001). Researchers found that Hidden Figure Test scores
appeared to differ between musicians based on whether they possessed AP,
not on the age at which music training began. This finding is consistent with
the idea that, among musicians with early music training, differences in
cognitive style may account for the development of AP in some and not in
others.
The possible connection between the field independent cognitive style and
development of AP is illustrated indirectly by the exceptional cases of individ-uals with autism. Characteristics of autism include impaired language ability
and lack of understanding of the mental states of others (mindblindness),
as well as strong preferences for familiar surroundings and routine, and a
sometimes amazing ability to notice details. With regard to autism, Baron-
Cohen and Hammer (1997) go so far as to suggest that autism itself is a
cognitive style. Whatever ones theoretical view of autism, research findings
with autistic individuals suggest that they may tend to have a field independ-
ent cognitive style, which is the cognitive style hypothesized to facilitate the
development of AP. Children with autism scored significantly higher thancontrols on the Childrens EFT (Shah and Frith, 1983); in addition, adults
with autism (Jolliffe and Baron-Cohen, 1997), and parents of children with
autism (Baron-Cohen and Hammer, 1997), performed significantly faster
than controls on the EFT. More significantly, boys with autism demonstrated
an AP-like ability to a greater extent than controls in a methodologically
innovative study pairing animal pictures with musical pitches (Heaton et al.,
1998). In addition, in a musical task which required adult participants to
determine whether two melodies were alike or not, adults with autism per-
formed better than controls under circumstances which favored the use of anAP-based strategy, i.e. melodies were not transposed and the contour did not
change (Mottron et al., 2000). Interestingly, in one sample of autistic individ-
uals with a special talent, the most common type of talent found was musical
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 161
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
8/17
talent (Rimland and Fein, 1988). Moreover, in 13 case studies of cognitively
challenged subjects with incredible musical ability, many had autistic tenden-
cies, and all played the piano and possessed AP (Miller, 1989).
BREAD TH OF ATTEN TIONIndividuals can be classified into cognitive styles, not only by field dependence
or field independence, but by their tendencies to deploy either broad atten-
tion, which refers to processing stimuli globally, or narrow attention, which
refers to breaking stimuli down into components (Zelniker and Jeffrey, 1979).
This article proposes that individuals who tend to perceive information,
including sounds, with narrow attention are more likely to develop AP.
According to one estimate, about 40 percent of young children have the ten-
dency to process information with narrow attention (Adams and Shepp, cited
in Zelniker and Jeffrey, 1979). If approximately 40 percent of the populationhas the potential to develop AP, that would explain why even the highest
reported rates of AP among musicians (whether Canadian, Japanese, or
Asian American) generally do not exceed 50 percent (Gregersen et al., 2000;
Kendall, 1996; Miyazaki, 1988; Sergeant, 1969).
Although not a main focus of research on AP, researchers have sometimes
studied AP in blind individuals and found that it occurs more frequently than
among sighted individuals. This research is discussed here because a possible
explanation is that blind individuals, extremely alert to their surroundings
with senses other than vision, may tend to employ a narrow attentional stylewith regard to auditory information. For instance, researchers have found
that blind people have the ability to localize sounds more precisely than sight-
ed people (Rauschecker, 2001). Bachem (1940) found AP to be more preva-
lent in blind than in sighted individuals, and later researchers corroborated
this finding. Welch (1988) found over half of the early blind children in his
sample gave indications of possessing AP, and mentions other reports of AP
occurring in blind individuals more frequently than in sighted individuals,
whether at a rate of 14 percent or around 50 percent (Revesz, 1953, and
Neal, 1983, cited in Welch, 1988). Recently, Hamilton et al. (2000) reportedthat 58 percent of the early blind musicians in their study had AP. If it is
adaptive for blind children to develop the cognitive style of narrow attention
when paying particular attention to sounds in their environment, perhaps
this enhanced sensitivity to individual environmental sounds naturally leads
blind people to attend narrowly to individual musical pitches. Supporting this
idea is the finding that blind participants performance on a test requiring
auditory attention, the auditory EFT, was superior to that of sighted partici-
pants (Witkin et al., 1971). Doing well on this test requires recognizing
whether a short tune, consisting of three, four or five notes, is contained in alonger tune.
162 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
9/17
Neurological correlates in the development of absolute pitch
Two aspects of the brain may be related to the facilitation of the development
of AP: brain plasticity and hemispheric lateralization. Although the type of
music training in early childhood has been discussed as important to the
development of AP, another factor that may contribute to young children
being able to develop AP is their greater brain plasticity. A growing area of
research concerns the improvement of childrens spatial and other abilities
due to music study, whether keyboard-based (Costa-Giomi, 1999; Rauscher
et al., 1997), songbell- and singing-based (Gromko and Poorman, 1998), or
singing-based through the Kodaly curriculum (Gardiner et al., 1996; Hurwitz
et al., 1975). In addition, research on the brains of adults has found differ-
ences between musicians and non-musicians (Elbert et al., 1995; Pantev et al.,
1998; Schlaug et al., 1995). The results of these studies suggest that the
adult musicians early participation in musical activities when they were
children helped to shape the development of their brains.
Hemispheric lateralization refers to the phenomenon that many brain
functions are specialized to some extent in the left hemisphere or the right
hemisphere of the brain. For example, most right-handed individuals are
dominant for language in their left hemisphere (Loring et al., cited in
Springer and Deutsch, 1997). Individuals with AP may also be dominant for
musical pitch perception in their left hemisphere. A possible correlate of cog-
nitive style in brain anatomy is the degree of asymmetry of the planum tem-
porale (PT), a region of the auditory cortex found in both temporal lobes. The
PT has been observed to be relatively larger on the left side in most people
(Geschwind and Levitsky, 1968). It has also been found to be relatively larger
on the left side in AP possessors to a greater extent than in non-AP musicians
and non-musicians (Schlaug et al., 1995). According to a recent study, this
greater leftward asymmetry in the planum temporale of AP possessors is due
to a smaller PT region in the right hemisphere (Keenan et al., 2001). 4 The
authors propose that:
. . . early developmental pruning in the right PT may create an anatomicaldominance of the left PT. This in turn might create a functional dominance of
the left PT over the right PT, which might be necessary for the acquisition
and/or manifestation of AP. (p. 1407)
Although the type of early music training may account for early develop-
mental pruning in the right PT, another possible explanation is that individ-
uals may differ in their genetic coding for aspects of brain development or in
the prenatal environment experienced, either of which could affect asym-
metry of the PT. If so, it is likely that multiple genes would influence the
development of the PT, and leftward asymmetry of the PT could be consid-ered analogous to an emergenic trait (Lykken et al., 1992), rather than there
being the existence of a single AP gene (Lenhoff et al., 2001b). To speculate:
being left-brained in ones PT could possibly reflect a more general dominance
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 163
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
10/17
of the left hemisphere in multiple brain functions, and the more analytical
cognitive style (field independent or narrow attention) hypothesized to be
associated with the development of AP. Many researchers in the area of
hemispheric specialization believe that the left hemisphere is dominant for
sequential and analytical processing of information, whereas the right hemi-sphere is dominant for global, holistic processing (Bever, 1980; Goldberg and
Costa, 1981).
The development of AP may be mainly limited to the window of develop-
ment prior to about the age of 6 years because the left hemisphere is develop-
ing faster than the right hemisphere between ages 3 to 6 years (Thatcher et
al., 1987). In most typically developing children, the left hemisphere becomes
dominant for language during this period. It is the position of this article that,
among children who are exposed to participation in certain types of musical
activities during this period, those who have the field independent cognitivestyle, or tend to perceive information with narrow attention, will be predis-
posed to thinking of music in terms of AP.
Conclusion and future directions in AP research
Currently, researchers studying AP acknowledge the importance of music
training in early childhood for the development of AP. Researchers who
believe in a cognitive explanation know that the level of cognitive develop-
ment of preschoolers plays an important role (Takeuchi and Hulse, 1993).Researchers who believe in a genetic explanation are searching for a single
AP gene (Baharloo et al., 2000; Gregersen et al., 2000; Profita and Bidder,
1988). Researchers who believe there is a neurological correlate of AP have
found greater leftward asymmetry of the planum temporale (PT) in individu-
als with AP (Keenan et al., 2001; Schlaug et al., 1995). How do these pieces
of the puzzle of AP fit together?
Since cognitive style can be genetically influenced, the idea presented in
this article regarding the roles of cognitive style and early music training in
the development of AP is the first to integrate a cognitive and a genetic expla-nation. There are two factors that can facilitate the development of AP: (1)
experiencing a certain kind of music training before the age of 6 years, and
(2) being predisposed to interpreting the world with an analytic cognitive
style. It is important for children to be exposed to musical activities before the
age of 6 years, because the preoperational period of Piaget (1950) ages
3 to 6 years is when children have not yet begun to think of music in a
more relativistic manner, and is also a period in which the left hemisphere
experiences a growth spurt (Thatcher et al., 1987). Those children who are
predisposed to interpreting the world with an analytic cognitive style, i.e.would be classified as field independent or have the tendency to use narrow
attention, are more likely to develop AP if they have particular kinds of music
experience during the critical period of the preschool years. The biological
164 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
11/17
basis of the individual differences between children in cognitive style may be
coded for by multiple genes affecting brain development, or even influenced
by hormones during their development in the womb. And it may be that, in
some cases, such as those of blind individuals, environmental factors can
affect cognitive style.This articles hypothesis about the importance of early music training and
cognitive style in the development of AP suggests interesting research direc-
tions. The easiest study would examine whether adult AP possessors exhibit
the cognitive styles hypothesized to facilitate the development of AP field
independence and the tendency to use narrow attention processes. The most
elegant kind of research would be a prospective, longitudinal study of chil-
dren from preschool through puberty. Childrens cognitive styles would be
assessed before and throughout music training to discover whether children
who are field independent and have the tendency to use narrow attentionprocesses are more likely to develop AP. Children would be given piano, violin,
guitar or voice lessons in order to determine whether playing certain instru-
ments facilitates the development of AP. Childrens naturalistic music behav-
iors could also be observed (Miller, 1987).
The challenge for researchers in the cognitive neuroscience tradition is to
discover whether the greater leftward asymmetry in the PT of AP possessors
(Keenan et al., 2001; Schlaug et al., 1995) is simply one indicator of an
analytic cognitive style, or to further specify what role the PT plays in pitch
perception for individuals with AP. Although a clear picture of how music isprocessed in the brain has yet to emerge (Brust, 2001), researchers by using
multiple techniques have found differences between AP possessors and
non-AP musicians and non-musicians (Barnea et al., 1994; Gordon, 1998;
Hantz et al., 1992; Hirata et al., 1999; Katanoda et al., 2000; Klein et al.,
1984; Wayman et al., 1992; Zatorre et al., 1998).
One research suggestion for geneticists who believe in the existence of a
single AP gene is to stop assuming that there is no way to test for AP in peo-
ple with no music training, and instead further adapt Levitins (1999) clever
procedure of investigating whether non-musicians could remember pitchesby having them carry around and listen to a tuning fork for a week, then test-
ing them a week later for recognition of the pitch. Presumably, non-musician
adults predicted to carry the AP gene would display more accurate pitch
memory than non-musician adults predicted to lack the AP gene. It may also
be worthwhile to explore the assessment of pitch memory in individuals
without music training by administering such measures as the Distorted
Tunes Test (DTT), which requires recognition of melodies (Drayna et al.,
2001).
Also, more research on music perception in the first two years of life iswarranted. Despite the emphasis of this articles hypothesis on the impor-
tance of the preschool years, it is possible that music experience early in life
plays an important role, but the music development of infants and toddlers
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 165
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
12/17
has been studied to a lesser extent than that of older children (however, see
Kelley and Sutton-Smith, 1987; Saffran and Griepentrog, 2001; Trehub,
2001). In fact, music experience in the womb may even affect development
(Lecanuet, 1996; Schlaug et al., 1995).
In addition to these future research directions, it would be fascinating todiscover whether AP is a universal phenomenon. Ethnomusicologists could
begin to investigate AP. Although the research discussed in this article took
place in different countries, all studies were of musicians trained in Western
music. Does AP exist in non-Western music cultures? For example, Javanese
gamelan (Indonesian) music is based on a pentatonic scale and the musical
instruments in each villages set, or gamelan, are tuned to each other and not
to an absolute standard (Van Zanten, 1997). If AP exists among Javanese
musicians, what kind of music experience is associated with the development
of AP? Is it necessary to grow up hearing the gamelan of only one village? IfAP does not exist among Javanese musicians, why not?
Researchers in diverse disciplines have made important contributions
to our current understanding of the phenomenon of AP. While the techno-
logical advances in studying the brain are clearly the most exciting recent
developments to affect the study of AP, the greatest future progress in
figuring out how AP develops may come from taking interdisciplinary
approaches.
N O T E S
1. Andrzej Rakowski, Professor of Sound Engineering, Fryderyk Chopin Academy of
Music, Warsaw.
2. Another factor of possible relevance here is that speakers of tone languages, such
as Mandarin, may use a type of AP (Deutsch et al., 1999).
3. For something to be a cognitive style rather than a cognitive ability, there must be
advantages for those who score at either end of the spectrum. Although
researchers seem to agree that breadth of attention is truly a cognitive style, note
that the construct of field independence has been criticized for simply being spa-
tial ability or intelligence in disguise (see Ferrari and Sternberg, 1998), and hence
a cognitive ability rather than a cognitive style (Kemler Nelson and Smith, 1989).4. Some researchers believe that it is the greater rightward asymmetry of the
planum parietale, rather than the greater leftward asymmetry of the planum
temporale, that distinguishes AP possessors from others (Katanoda et al., 2000).
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the European Society
for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) in 1997. While writing this paper, the
author was supported by grants from the University of California at Santa Cruz and
the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The author would like to acknowledge thehelp of Avril Thorne and the reviewers of the manuscript.
166 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
13/17
R E F E R E N C E S
Bachem, A. (1940) The Genesis of Absolute Pitch,Journal of the Acoustical Society of
America 11(4): 4349.
Bachem, A. (1955) Absolute Pitch,Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 27(6):
11805.Baharloo, S., Johnston, P.A., Service, S.K., Gitschier, J. and Freimer, N.B. (1998)
Absolute Pitch: An Approach for Identification of Genetic and Nongenetic
Components, American Journal of Human Genetics 62(2): 22431.
Baharloo, S., Service, S.K., Risch, N., Gitschier, J. and Freimer, N.B. (2000) Familial
Aggregation of Absolute Pitch, American Journal of Human Genetics 67(3): 7558.
Barnea, A., Granot, R. and Pratt, H. (1994) Absolute Pitch Electrophysiological
Evidence, International Journal of Psychophysiology 16(1): 2938.
Baron-Cohen, S. and Hammer, J. (1997) Parents of Children with Asperger
Syndrome: What is the Cognitive Phenotype?,Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
9(4): 54854.
Bartlett, J.C. and Dowling, W.J. (1980) The Recognition of Transposed Melodies: A
Key-Distance Effect in Developmental Perspective,Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 6(3): 50114.
Bever, T.G. (1980) Broca and Lashley Were Right: Cerebral Dominance is an Accident
of Growth, in D. Caplan (ed.) Biological Studies of Mental Processes, pp. 186230.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bialystok, E. (1992) Symbolic Representation of Letters and Numbers, Cognitive
Development 7(3): 30116.
Brady, P. (1970) Fixed-Scale Mechanism of Absolute Pitch,Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America 48(4, part 2): 8837.
Brown, A. (1987) Approaches to Classroom Music for Children, in J.C. Peery,I.W. Peery, and T.W. Draper (eds) Music and Child Development, pp. 18493. New
York: Springer Verlag.
Brust, J. C. M. (2001) Music and the Neurologist: A Historical Perspective, in
R. Zatorre and I. Peretz (eds) The Biological Foundations of Music, Annals of the
New York Academy of Science 930: 14352.
Case, R., Okamoto, Y., Griffin, S., McKeough, A., Bleiker, C., Henderson, B. and
Stephenson, K.M. (1996) The Role of Central Conceptual Structures in the
Development of Childrens Thought, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development 61.
Cohen, A.J. and Baird, K. (1990) Acquisition of Absolute Pitch: The Question ofCritical Periods, Psychomusicology 9(1): 317.
Costa-Giomi, E. (1999) The Effects of Three Years of Piano Instruction on Childrens
Cognitive Development,Journal of Research in Music Education 47(3): 198212.
Costa-Giomi, E., Glimour, R., Siddell, J. and Levebre, E. (2001) Absolute Pitch, Early
Music Training and Spatial Abilities, in R. Zatorre and I. Peretz (eds) The
Biological Foundations of Music, Annals of the New York Academy of Science 930:
3946.
Crutchfield, W. (1990) There May Be More to Music than Meets a Typical Ear, The
New York Times, 23 December, 140(sec 2): 31, 42.
Deutsch, D., Henthorn, T. and Dolson, M. (1999) Absolute Pitch is Demonstrated inSpeakers of Tone Languages,Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106(4,
part 2): 2267.
Drayna, D., Manichaikul, A., de Lange, M., Snieder, H. and Spector, T. (2001) Genetic
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 167
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
14/17
Correlates of Musical Pitch Recognition in Humans, Science 291(5510):
196972.
Elbert, T., Pantev, C., Wienbruch, C., Rockstroh, B. and Taub, E. (1995) Increased
Cortical Representation of the Fingers of the Left Hand in String Players, Science
270(5234): 3057.
Ferrari, M. and Sternberg, R.J. (1998) The Development of Mental Abilities andStyles, in W. Damon, D. Kuhn and R. Siegler (eds) Handbook of Child Psychology,
Vol. 2: Cognition, Perception, and Language, 5th edn, pp. 899946. New York: Wiley.
Gardiner, M.F., Fox, A., Knowles, F. and Jeffrey, D. (1996) Learning Improved by Arts
Training, Nature 381(6580): 284.
Geschwind, N. and Levitsky, W. (1968) Left-Right Asymmetries in the Temporal
Speech Region, Science 161(3837): 1867.
Goldberg, E. and Costa, L.D. (1981) Hemisphere Differences in the Acquisition and
Use of Descriptive Systems, Brain and Language 14(1): 14473.
Gordon, R.S. (1998) Cortical Dynamics Associated with Absolute Pitch Processing,
Dissertation Abstracts International, Section B: The Sciences & Engineering 58: 6863.Gregersen, P.K., Kowalsky, E., Kohn, E. and Marvin, E.W. (1999) Absolute Pitch:
Prevalence, Ethnic Variation, and Estimation of the Genetic Component, American
Journal of Human Genetics 65(3): 91113.
Gregersen, P.K., Kowalsky, E., Kohn, N. and Marvin, E.W. (2000) Early Childhood
Music Education and Predisposition to Absolute Pitch: Teasing Apart Genes and
Environment, American Journal of Medical Genetics 98(3): 2802.
Gromko, J.E. and Poorman, A.S. (1998) The Effect of Music Training on
Preschoolers Spatial-Temporal Task Performance,Journal of Research in Music
Education 46(2): 17381.
Halford, G.S. (1984) Can Young Children Integrate Premises in Transitivity andSerial Order Tasks?, Cognitive Psychology 16(1): 6593.
Hamilton, R.H., Pascual-Leone, A., Rodriguez, D. and Schlaug, G. (2000) Increased
Prevalence of Absolute Pitch in Blind Musicians, Society for Neuroscience Abstracts
26(12): Abstract No. 739.13.
Hantz, E.C., Crummer, G.C., Wayman, J.W., Walton, J.P. and Frisina, R.D. (1992)
Effects of Musical Training and Absolute Pitch on the Neural Processing of Melodic
Intervals: A P3 Event-Related Potential Study, Music Perception 10(1): 2542.
Hargreaves, D. (1996) The Development of Artistic and Musical Competence, in
I. Delige and J. Sloboda (eds) Musical Beginnings: Origins and Development of
Musical Competence, pp. 14570. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heaton, P., Hermelin, B. and Pring, L. (1998) Autism and Pitch Processing: A
Precursor for Savant Musical Ability, Music Perception 15(3): 291305.
Hirata, Y., Kuriki, S. and Pantev, C. (1999) Musicians with Absolute Pitch Show
Distinct Neural Activities in the Auditory Cortex, NeuroReport 10(5): 9991002.
Hurwitz, I., Wolff, P., Bortnick, B. and Kokas, K. (1975) Nonmusical Effects of the
Kodaly Music Curriculum in Primary Grade Children,Journal of Learning
Disabilities 8(3): 4552.
Jolliffe, T. and Baron-Cohen, S. (1997) Are People with Autism and Asperger
Syndrome Faster than Normal on the Embedded Figures Test?,Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry 38(5): 52734.
Katanoda, K., Yoshikawa, K. and Sugishita, M. (2000) Strong Rightward Asymmetryof the Planum Parietale Associated with the Ability of Absolute Pitch, in
T. Nakada (ed.) Integrated Human Brain Science: Theory, Method, Application (Music),
pp. 48791. New York: Elsevier.
168 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
15/17
Keenan, J.P., Thangeraj, R., Halpern, A.R. and Schlaug, G. (2001) Absolute Pitch and
Planum Temporale, NeuroImage 14(6): 14028.
Kelley, L. and Sutton-Smith, B. (1987) A Study of Infant Musical Productivity, in
J.C. Peery, I.W. Peery and T.W. Draper (eds) Music and Child Development, pp. 3553.
New York: Springer Verlag.
Kemler Nelson, D.G. and Smith, J.D. (1989) Analytic and Holistic Processing inReflection-Impulsivity and Cognitive Development, in T. Globerson and T. Zamar
(eds) Human Development, Vol. 3: Cognitive Style and Cognitive Development,
pp. 11640. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Kendall, S. (1996) Well-Tuned Brains, Harvard Magazine 98(3): 1920.
Klein, M., Coles, M. and Donchin, E. (1984) People with Absolute Pitch Process Tones
Without Producing a P300, Science 223(4642): 13069.
Lecanuet, J. (1996) Prenatal Auditory Experience, in I. Delige and J. Sloboda (eds)
Musical Beginnings: Origins and Development of Musical Competence, pp. 334. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Lenhoff, H.M., Perales, O. and Hickok, G. (2001a) Absolute Pitch in WilliamsSyndrome, Music Perception 18(4): 491503.
Lenhoff, H.M., Perales, O. and Hickok, G.S. (2001b) Preservation of a Normally
Transient Critical Period in a Cognitively Impaired Population: Window of
Opportunity for Acquiring Absolute Pitch in Williams Syndrome, in C.A. Shaw
and J.C. McEachern (eds) Toward a Theory of Neuroplasticity, pp. 27587.
Philadelphia: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.
Levitin, D.J. (1994) Absolute Memory for Musical Pitch: Evidence from the
Production of Learned Melodies, Perception and Psychophysics 56(4): 41423.
Levitin, D.J. (1999) Memory for Musical Attributes, in P.R. Cook (ed.) Music,
Cognition and Computerized Sound: An Introduction to Psychoacoustics, pp. 20927.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levitin, D.J. and Bellugi, U. (1998) Musical Abilities in Individuals with Williams
Syndrome, Music Perception 15(4): 35789.
Lockhead, G.R. and Byrd, R. (1981) Practically Perfect Pitch,Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America 70(2): 3879.
Lykken, D.T., McGue, M., Tellegen, A. and Bouchard, Jr, T.J. (1992) Emergenesis:
Genetic Traits that May Not Run in Families, American Psychologist 47(12):
156577.
Messick, S. (1994) The Matter of Style: Manifestations of Personality in Cognition,
Learning, and Teaching, Educational Psychologist 29(3): 12136.
Meyer, M. (1899) Is the Memory of Absolute Pitch Capable of Development by
Training?, Psychological Review 6(5): 51416.
Miller, L.B. (1987) Childrens Musical Behaviors, in J.C. Peery, I.W. Peery and
T.W. Draper (eds) Music and Child Development, pp. 3553. New York: Springer
Verlag.
Miller, L.K. (1989) Musical Savants: Exceptional Skill in the Mentally Retarded. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Miyazaki, K. (1988) Musical Pitch Identification by Absolute Pitch Possessors,
Perception and Psychophysics 44(6): 50112.
Miyazaki, K. (1989) Absolute Pitch Identification: Effects of Timbre and Pitch
Region, Music Perception 7(1): 114.Miyazaki, K. (1990) The Speed of Musical Pitch Identification by Absolute-Pitch
Possessors, Music Perception 8(2): 17788.
Miyazaki, K. (1995) Perception of Relative Pitch with Different References: Some
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 169
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
16/17
Absolute-Pitch Listeners Cant Tell Musical Interval Names, Perception and
Psychophysics 57(7): 96270.
Mottron, L., Peretz, I. and Menard, E. (2000) Local and Global Processing of Music in
High-Functioning Persons with Autism: Beyond Central Coherence?,Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry 41(8): 105765.
Pantev, C., Oostenveld, R., Engellen, A., Ross, B., Roberts, L.E. and Hoke, M. (1998)Increased Auditory Cortical Representation in Musicians, Nature 392(6678):
81114.
Parncutt, R. and Levitin, D.J. (in press) Absolute Pitch, in S. Sadie (ed.) New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians. New York: St Martins Press.
Piaget, J. (1950) The Psychology of Intelligence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Profita, J. and Bidder, T.G. (1988) Perfect Pitch, American Journal of Medical Genetics
29(4): 76371.
Rauschecker, J.P. (2001) Cortical Plasticity and Music, in R. Zatorre and I. Peretz
(eds) The Biological Foundations of Music, Annals of the New York Academy of
Science 930: 3306.Rauscher, R., Shaw, G., Levine, L., Wright, E., Dennis, W. and Newcomb, R. (1997)
Music Training Causes Long-Term Enhancement of Preschool Childrens Spatial-
Temporal Ability, Neurological Research 19(1): 28.
Rimland, B. and Fein, D. (1988) Special Talents of Autistic Savants, in L.K. Obler and
D. Fein (eds) The Exceptional Brain: Neuropsychology of Talent and Special Abilities,
pp. 47492. New York: Guilford.
Rush, M. A. (1989) An Experimental Investigation of the Effectiveness of Training on
Absolute Pitch in Adult Musicians, Dissertation Abstracts International 50: 826-A.
Saffran, J.R. and Griepentrog, G.J. (2001) Absolute Pitch in Infant Auditory Learning:
Evidence for Developmental Reorganization, Developmental Psychology 37(1):7485.
Sameroff, A.J. and Haith, M.M. (eds) (1996) The Five to Seven Year Shift: The Age of
Reason and Responsibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schlaug, G., Jancke, L., Huang, Y. and Staiger, J.F. (1995) Increased Corpus Callosum
Size in Musicians, Neuropsychologia 33(8): 104755.
Schlaug, G., Jancke, L., Huang, Y. and Steinmetz, H. (1995) In Vivo Evidence of
Structural Brain Asymmetry in Musicians, Science 267(5198): 699701.
Scott-Kassner, C. (1992) Research on Music in Early Childhood, in R. Colwell (ed.)
Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, pp. 63350. New York:
Macmillan.
Sergeant, D.C. (1969) Experimental Investigation of Absolute Pitch,Journal of
Research in Music Education 17(1): 13543.
Sergeant, D.C. and Roche, S. (1973) Perceptual Shifts in the Auditory Information
Processing of Young Children, Psychology of Music 1(2): 3948.
Shah, A. and Frith, U. (1983) An Islet of Ability in Autistic Children: A Research
Note,Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 24(8): 61320.
Siegler, R.S. (1996) Unidimensional Thinking, Multidimensional Thinking, and
Characteristic Tendencies of Thought, in A.J. Sameroff and M.M. Haith (eds) The
Five to Seven Year Shift: The Age of Reason and Responsibility, pp. 6384. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Springer, S.P. and Deutsch, G. (1997), Left Brain, Right Brain, 5th edn. San Francisco:Freeman.
Takeuchi, A.H. and Hulse, S.H. (1991) Absolute Pitch Judgments of Black- and
White-Key Pitches, Music Perception 9(1): 2746.
170 Psychology of Music 31(2)
7/31/2019 Ouvido Absoluto CHIN
17/17
Takeuchi, A.H. and Hulse, S.H. (1993) Absolute Pitch, Psychological Bulletin 113(2):
34561.
Thatcher, R., Walker, R. and Guidice, S. (1987) Human Cerebral Hemispheres
Develop at Different Rates and Ages, Science 236(4805): 111013.
Trehub, S. E. (2001) Musical Predispositions in Infancy, in R. Zatorre and I. Peretz
(eds) The Biological Foundations of Music, Annals of the New York Academy ofScience 930: 116.
Van Zanten, W. (1997) Inner and Outer Voices: Listening and Hearing in West Java,
The World of Music 39(2): 419.
Wayman, J.W., Frisina, R.D., Walton, J.P., Hantz, E.C. and Crummer, G.C. (1992)
Effects of Musical Training and Absolute Pitch Ability on Event-Related Activity
in Response to Sine Tones,Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 91(6):
352731.
Welch, G.F. (1988) Observations on the Incidence of Absolute Pitch (AP) in the Early
Blind, Psychology of Music 16(1): 7780.
White, D.J., Dale, P.S. and Carlsen, J.C. (1990) Discrimination and Categorization ofPitch Direction by Young Children, Psychomusicology 9(1): 3958.
Witkin, H.A. and Goodenough, D.R. (1981) Cognitive Styles: Essence and Origins. New
York: International Universities Press.
Witkin, H.A., Oltman, P.K., Chase, J.B. and Friedman, F.F. (1971) Cognitive
Patterning in the Blind, in J. Hellmuth (ed.) Cognitive Studies, Vol. 2: Deficits in
Cognition, pp. 1646. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Zatorre, R. and Beckett, C. (1989) Multiple Coding Strategies in the Retention of
Musical Tones by Possessors of Absolute Pitch, Memory and Cognition 17(5):
5829.
Zatorre, R.J., Perry, D.W., Beckett, C.A., Westbury, C.F. and Evans, A.C. (1998)Functional Anatomy of Musical Processing in Listeners with Absolute Pitch and
Relative Pitch, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 95(6): 31727.
Zelniker, T. and Jeffrey, W.E. (1979) Attention and Cognitive Style in Children, in
G.A. Hale and M. Lewis (eds) Attention and Cognitive Development, pp. 27596. New
York: Plenum.
C HR IS TI NA S . C H I N is currently a psychology instructor at the College of Alameda
and a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Her dissertation is about artistically talented adolescents and the social support they
receive from family members, friends and teachers for their artistic activities (includ-
ing music). She holds an MS in psychology from the University of California at Santa
Cruz, an EdM from Harvard University, and a BA from the University of California at
Berkeley.
Address: College of Alameda, Division of Arts and Letters, 555 Atlantic Avenue,
Alameda, CA 94501, USA. [email: [email protected]]
Chin: Development of absolute pitch 171