Training the absolute identification of pitch

Two methods for training the absolute judgment of pitch, reference training and series training, were studied. Reference training concentrated during training on the identification of three reference tones in a set of nine pure tones, while series training gave equal weight during training to the identification of all nine tones. Results of pre- and posttraining tests, scored for the number of correct judgments, showed that reference training was more effective than series training for listeners with musical experience. In addition, discriminability (d′) scaling of pre- and posttest performance indicated that reference training was particularly effective for training listeners with musical experience when the nine tones of a set were grouped into three pitch classes—high, medium, and low pitch. Listeners without musical experience benefited from both training methods, but their overall improvement was less than that for musical listeners.