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Impaired learning of event frequencies in tone deafness
Author(s) -
Loui Psyche,
Schlaug Gottfried
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06401.x
Subject(s) - melody , tone (literature) , audiology , psychology , contrast (vision) , musical tone , musical , pitch (music) , medicine , neuroscience , perception , computer science , linguistics , art , philosophy , artificial intelligence , visual arts
Musical knowledge is ubiquitous, effortless, and implicitly acquired all over the world via exposure to musical materials in one's culture. In contrast, one group of individuals who show insensitivity to music, specifically the inability to discriminate pitches and melodies, is the tone‐deaf. In this study, we asked whether difficulties in pitch and melody discrimination among the tone‐deaf could be related to learning difficulties, and, if so, what processes of learning might be affected in the tone‐deaf. We investigated the learning of frequency information in a new musical system in tone‐deaf individuals and matched controls. Results showed significantly impaired learning abilities in frequency matching in the tone‐deaf. This impairment was positively correlated with the severity of tone deafness as assessed by the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia. Taken together, the results suggest that tone deafness is characterized by an impaired ability to acquire frequency information from pitched materials in the sound environment.