Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Absolute pitch (AP), also known as “perfect pitch,” is the ability to name or produce a musical note without a reference note. Certain environmental factors associated with AP, such as early musical training and tonal language experience, have influenced current theories on the mechanisms underlying AP. Yet, evidence for these associations typically involves comparing individuals “with” and “without” AP, which may represent an inappropriate sampling technique if AP is a continuously distributed ability in the population. In a large-scale online assessment, we found strong evidence that AP performance was continuously variable rather than clearly discrete; approximately 30% of the sample performed above chance but below levels typically thought to reflect “genuine” AP ability. The participants who performed at chance reported later ages of music onset and were less likely to speak a tonal language, conceptually supporting prior work. Critically, however, these factors did not differentiate the highest “genuine” AP performers from the intermediate “pseudo” AP performers. Gaussian mixture modelling provided clear support for two (not three) distributions, with the “pseudo” AP participants belonging to the same distribution as the “genuine” AP participants. These results strongly suggest that AP as a phenomenon should be redefined to include intermediate levels of performance, as such an approach may lead to novel insights into the underlying mechanisms of pitch memory more broadly.