The perception of harmonic complexes provides important information for musical and vocal communication. Numerous studies have shown that musical training and expertise are associated with better processing of harmonic complexes, however, it is unclear whether the perceptual improvement associated with musical training is universal to different pitch models. The current study addresses this issue by measuring discrimination thresholds of musicians (n = 20) and non-musicians (n = 18) to diotic (same sound to both ears) and dichotic (different sounds to each ear) sounds of four stimulus types: (1) pure sinusoidal tones, PT; (2) four-harmonic complex tones, CT; (3) iterated rippled noise, IRN; and (4) interaurally correlated broadband noise, called the “Huggins” or “dichotic” pitch, DP. Frequency difference limens (DLF) for each stimulus type were obtained via a three-alternative-forced-choice adaptive task requiring selection of the interval with the highest pitch, yielding the smallest perceptible fundamental frequency (F0) distance (in Hz) between two sounds. Music skill was measured by an online test of musical pitch, melody and timing maintained by the International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research. Musicianship, length of music experience and self-evaluation of musical skill were assessed by questionnaire. Results showed musicians had smaller DLFs in all four conditions with the largest group difference in the dichotic condition. DLF thresholds were related to both subjective and objective musical ability. In addition, subjective self-report of musical ability was shown to be a significant variable in group classification. Taken together, the results suggest that music-related plasticity benefits multiple mechanisms of pitch encoding and that self-evaluation of musicality can be reliably associated with objective measures of perception.
Management of hemodynamically unstable pelvic trauma: results of the first Italian consensus conference (cooperative guidelines of the Italian Society of Surgery, the Italian Association of Hospital Surgeons, the Multi-specialist Italian Society of Young Surgeons, the Italian Society of Emergency Surgery and Trauma, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care, the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine, the Italian Society of Medical Radiology -Section of Vascular and Interventional Radiology- and the World Society of Emergency Surgery)