Absolute pitch: A special group of ears
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, 5 Research Court, Rockville, MD 20850
Auditory pitch perception is an ability that is pervasive in the animal kingdom, but many features of this ability are not understood. In humans, it is clear that pitch perception is the result of sound processing by the listener, and although the perceived pitch of a sound is strongly related to its frequency, careful psychophysical studies have revealed many surprising features of this auditory function (1). One of the most remarkable aspects of human pitch perception is the phenomenon of absolute pitch (AP), which is the subject of an article by Athos et al. (2) in this issue of PNAS.
The Nature of Absolute Pitch
AP is the ability to instantly and effortlessly identify the pitch of a tone without the use of a reference tone. Most of us who do not possess AP require some sort of reference, such as a tone from a pitch pipe, to start a melody on the correct note. However, most non-AP individuals can easily determine the relative distance between two pitches. This ability is called “relative pitch” and is the basis for our ability to recognize a melody, in which successive pitches (notes) occur at specific distances from each other (intervals) on the musical scale. So, although [most of us can recognize a wrong note in a melody], we cannot easily recognize the difference when a melody is played correctly but begins at a higher or lower pitch. …
*E-mail: drayna{at}nidcd.nih.gov
