Ethnicity effects in relative pitch |
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Authors: | Michael J Hove Mary Elizabeth Sutherland Carol L Krumhansl |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuhlestrasse 14, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | Absolute pitch (AP), the rare ability to identify a musical pitch, occurs at a higher rate among East Asian musicians. This
has stimulated considerable research on the comparative contributions of genetic and environmental factors. Two studies examined
whether a similar ethnicity effect is found for relative pitch (RP), identifying the distance or interval between two tones.
Nonmusicians (n = 103) were trained to label musical intervals and were subsequently tested on interval identification. We establish similar
ethnicity effects: Chinese and Korean participants consistently outperformed other participants in RP tasks, but not in a
“relative rhythm” control task. This effect is not driven by previous musical or tone-language experience. The parallel with
the East Asian advantage for AP suggests that enhanced perceptual-cognitive processing of pitch is more general and is not
limited to highly trained musicians. This effect opens up many research questions concerning the environmental and genetic
contributions related to this more general pitch-based ability. |
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