dc.contributor.author |
Jiang, C |
en |
dc.contributor.author |
Lim, VK |
en |
dc.contributor.author |
Wang, H |
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dc.contributor.author |
Hamm, Jeffrey |
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dc.date.accessioned |
2014-12-17T01:51:20Z |
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dc.date.issued |
2013-10-25 |
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dc.identifier.citation |
PLoS One, 2013, 8 (10), 14 pp. |
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dc.identifier.issn |
1932-6203 |
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dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/23831 |
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dc.description.abstract |
Music processing is influenced by pitch perception and memory. Additionally these features interact, with pitch memory performance decreasing as the perceived distance between two pitches decreases. This study examined whether or not the difficulty of pitch discrimination influences pitch retention by testing individuals with congenital amusia. Pitch discrimination difficulty was equated by determining an individual’s threshold with a two down one up staircase procedure and using this to create conditions where two pitches (the standard and the comparison tones) differed by 1x, 2x, and 3x the threshold setting. For comparison with the literature a condition that employed a constant pitch difference of four semitones was also included. The results showed that pitch memory performance improved as the discrimination between the standard and the comparison tones was made easier for both amusic and control groups, and more importantly, that amusics did not show any pitch retention deficits when the discrimination difficulty was equated. In contrast, consistent with previous literature, amusics performed worse than controls when the physical pitch distance was held constant at four semitones. This impaired performance has been interpreted as evidence for pitch memory impairment in the past. However, employing a constant pitch distance always makes the difference closer to the discrimination threshold for the amusic group than for the control group. Therefore, reduced performance in this condition may simply reflect differences in the perceptual difficulty of the discrimination. The findings indicate the importance of equating the discrimination difficulty when investigating memory. |
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dc.relation.ispartofseries |
PLoS One |
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dc.rights |
Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Details obtained from http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1932-6203/ |
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dc.rights |
© 2013 Jiang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
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dc.rights.uri |
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm |
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dc.rights.uri |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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dc.title |
Difficulties with Pitch Discrimination Influences Pitch Memory Performance: Evidence from Congenital Amusia |
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dc.type |
Journal Article |
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dc.identifier.doi |
10.1371/journal.pone.0079216 |
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pubs.issue |
10 |
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pubs.volume |
8 |
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dc.description.version |
VoR - Version of Record |
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dc.identifier.pmid |
24205375 |
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dc.rights.accessrights |
http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess |
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pubs.subtype |
Article |
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pubs.elements-id |
408081 |
en |
pubs.org-id |
Science |
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pubs.org-id |
Psychology |
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dc.identifier.eissn |
1932-6203 |
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pubs.number |
e79216 |
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pubs.record-created-at-source-date |
2013-10-30 |
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pubs.dimensions-id |
24205375 |
en |