Same or different pitch? Effects of musical expertise, pitch difference, and auditory task on the pitch discrimination ability of musicians and non-musicians

2019 ◽  
Vol 238 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-258
Author(s):  
Christin Arndt ◽  
Kathrin Schlemmer ◽  
Elke van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Task ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Pitch Difference

The Influence of the Psychophysical Assessment Paradigm on Pitch Discrimination for Adults (and a Pilot Sample of Children)

2021 ◽  
pp. 003151252110440
Author(s):  
Ashley G. Flagge ◽  
Lucile Puranen ◽  
Madhuri S. Mulekar
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Discrimination Accuracy ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Pilot Sample ◽  
Pattern Of Performance

Pitch discrimination ability has been of research interest due to its potential relationship to language and literacy. However, assessment protocols for pitch discrimination have varied widely. Prior studies with both children and adults have produced conflicting performance findings across different pitch discrimination research paradigms, though they have consistently shown that discrimination accuracy is based on the psychophysical assessment method applied. In the present study, we examined pitch discrimination performance among convenience samples of 19 adult women and ten female children across six different adaptive psychophysical measurement conditions. We found pitch discrimination performance in both groups to be impacted by the measurement paradigm such that, while adults exhibited significantly better discrimination thresholds than did children, the pattern of performance across the six conditions was similar for both the adults and the children.

scholarly journals The relationship between pitch discrimination and Romanian students’ spelling performance

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-240
Author(s):  
Dacian Dorin Dolean
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Spelling Performance ◽  
Foreign Language Acquisition ◽  
Spelling Ability ◽  
Performance Ability

Abstract Previous studies have shown that music can have a positive impact on phonological awareness and on foreign language acquisition. The present research investigates specifically the role of pitch discrimination ability in native and foreign language spelling performance. Two groups of elementary school children were selected based on their pitch discrimination abilities (high and low). Their spelling performance in their native and a foreign (fictional) language was assessed. The results indicate that pitch discrimination ability can be linked to spelling ability in both the native and a foreign language. They also suggest that studying a musical instrument might predict enhanced spelling performance ability

The Assessment of Pitch Discrimination Ability in Young Children

1977 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moya L. Andrews ◽  
Shelley S. Madeira
Keyword(s):  
Motor Response ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Training Procedure ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Simple Motor ◽  
First Results ◽  
Age Range

This study tested the hypothesis that some tasks used in assessing pitch discrimination ability may instead be assessing children’s ability to deal with relational language. Five tasks were given to 36 normal children who were equally divided into three age groups, six to six and one-half years, seven to seven and one-half years, and eight to eight and one-half years of age. Task 1 involved a training procedure to assess the children’s ability to hear the differences in the pitch of two tones, which were an octave apart. A simple motor response was required. Task 2 assessed the children’s ability to label these tones as high or low. Task 3 assessed their ability to compare two tones and label the second as higher or lower than the first. Task 4 examined their ability to label as high or low the position of a man on a ladder. Task 5 examined their ability to compare the positions of two men on two ladders and say whether the second man was higher or lower than the first. Results indicated that children who make pitch discriminations as demonstrated by nearly perfect scores on Task 1 often fail to demonstrate those discriminations on tasks requiring relational language. A comparison of Tasks 2 and 3 to Tasks 4 and 5 suggests that children in the age range studied are less proficient in applying high-low and higher-lower to pitch than to spatial relations.

The Contribution of Frequency Discrimination Ability to Auditory Temporal Patterning Tests in Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 4314-4324
Author(s):  
Ashley G. Flagge ◽  
Tara Davis ◽  
Victoria S. Henbest
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Control Measure ◽  
Pediatric Population ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Temporal Patterning ◽  
Discrimination Ability

Purpose The Pitch Patterns Test (PPT) and the Duration Patterns Test (DPT) are clinical auditory processing tests that evaluate temporal patterning skills based on pitch (PPT) or duration (DPT) aspects of sound. Although temporal patterning tests are categorized under the temporal processing domain, successful performance on the PPT also relies on accurate pitch discrimination. However, the relationship between pitch discrimination ability and temporal patterning skills has not been thoroughly evaluated. This study examined the contribution of pitch discrimination ability to performance on temporal patterning in children through the use of a pitch discrimination task and the PPT. The DPT was also given as a control measure to assess temporal patterning with no pitch component. Method Thirty-two typically developing elementary school–age children (6;11–11;3 [years;months]) with normal hearing were given a series of three counterbalanced tasks: an adaptive psychophysical pitch discrimination task (difference limen for frequency [DLF]), the PPT, and the DPT. Results Correlational analysis revealed moderate correlations between DLF and PPT scores. After accounting for age, results of a linear regression analysis suggested that pitch discrimination accounts for a significant amount of variance in performance on the PPT. No significant correlation was found between DLF and DPT scores, supporting the hypothesis that the pitch task had no significant temporal patterning component contributing to the overall score. Discussion These findings indicate that pitch discrimination contributes significantly to performance on the PPT, but not the DPT, in a typically developing pediatric population. This is an important clinical consideration in both assessment and utilization of targeted therapy techniques for different clinical populations.

scholarly journals Place pitch discrimination and speech recognition in cochlear implants users

1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan J. Hanekom ◽  
Robert V. Shannon
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Patient Specific ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Place Pitch ◽  
Pitch Distance ◽  
The Relationship

The considerable variability in speech perception performance among cochlear implant patients makes it difficult to compare the effectiveness of different speech processing strategies. One result is that optimal individualized processor parameter setting is not always achieved. This paper investigates the relationship between place pitch discrimination ability and speech perception to establish whether pitch ranking could be used as an aid in better patient-specific fitting of processors. Three subjects participated in this study. Place pitch discrimination ability was measured and this information was used to design new channel to electrode allocations for each subject. Several allocations were evaluated with speech tests with consonant, vowel and sentence material. It is shown that there is correlation between the perceptual pitch distance between electrodes and speech perception performance. The results indicate that pitch ranking ability might be used both as an indicator of  the speech perception potential of an implant user and in the choice of better electrode configurations.

scholarly journals Musical Expertise Facilitates Dissonance Detection On Behavioral, Not On Early Sensory Level

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-98
Author(s):  
Tanja Linnavalli ◽  
Juha Ojala ◽  
Laura Haveri ◽  
Vesa Putkinen ◽  
Kaisamari Kostilainen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Sensory Level ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Behavioral Task ◽  
Musical Expertise ◽  
Consonance And Dissonance

Consonance and dissonance are basic phenomena in the perception of chords that can be discriminated very early in sensory processing. Musical expertise has been shown to facilitate neural processing of various musical stimuli, but it is unclear whether this applies to detecting consonance and dissonance. Our study aimed to determine if sensitivity to increasing levels of dissonance differs between musicians and nonmusicians, using a combination of neural (electroencephalographic mismatch negativity, MMN) and behavioral measurements (conscious discrimination). Furthermore, we wanted to see if focusing attention to the sounds modulated the neural processing. We used chords comprised of either highly consonant or highly dissonant intervals and further manipulated the degree of dissonance to create two levels of dissonant chords. Both groups discriminated dissonant chords from consonant ones neurally and behaviorally. The magnitude of the MMN differed only marginally between the more dissonant and the less dissonant chords. The musicians outperformed the nonmusicians in the behavioral task. As the dissonant chords elicited MMN responses for both groups, sensory dissonance seems to be discriminated in an early sensory level, irrespective of musical expertise, and the facilitating effects of musicianship for this discrimination may arise in later stages of auditory processing, appearing only in the behavioral auditory task.

scholarly journals A Neurophysiological Study of Musical Pitch Identification in Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Jieqing Cai ◽  
Yimeng Liu ◽  
Minyun Yao ◽  
Muqing Xu ◽  
Hongzheng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Pitch Perception ◽  
Pitch Discrimination ◽  
Oddball Paradigm ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Musical Pitch ◽  
Neurophysiological Studies ◽  
English Speaking

Music perception in cochlear implant (CI) users is far from satisfactory, not only because of the technological limitations of current CI devices but also due to the neurophysiological alterations that generally accompany deafness. Early behavioral studies revealed that similar mechanisms underlie musical and lexical pitch perception in CI-based electric hearing. Although neurophysiological studies of the musical pitch perception of English-speaking CI users are actively ongoing, little such research has been conducted with Mandarin-speaking CI users; as Mandarin is a tonal language, these individuals require pitch information to understand speech. The aim of this work was to study the neurophysiological mechanisms accounting for the musical pitch identification abilities of Mandarin-speaking CI users and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Behavioral and mismatch negativity (MMN) data were analyzed to examine musical pitch processing performance. Moreover, neurophysiological results from CI users with good and bad pitch discrimination performance (according to the just-noticeable differences (JND) and pitch-direction discrimination (PDD) tasks) were compared to identify cortical responses associated with musical pitch perception differences. The MMN experiment was conducted using a passive oddball paradigm, with musical tone C4 (262 Hz) presented as the standard and tones D4 (294 Hz), E4 (330 Hz), G#4 (415 Hz), and C5 (523 Hz) presented as deviants. CI users demonstrated worse musical pitch discrimination ability than did NH listeners, as reflected by larger JND and PDD thresholds for pitch identification, and significantly increased latencies and reduced amplitudes in MMN responses. Good CI performers had better MMN results than did bad performers. Consistent with findings for English-speaking CI users, the results of this work suggest that MMN is a viable marker of cortical pitch perception in Mandarin-speaking CI users.

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