People with absolute pitch process tones with producing P300.
We recorded a P300 component of event-related potentials associated with auditory oddball tasks in nine absolute pitch (AP) possessors and seven non-AP possessors. The previous studies demonstrated that AP possessors did not appear to employ working memory during auditory oddball tasks because they have a fixed tonal template in their memories. However, the present findings showed that the AP possessors exhibited similar P300 as the non-AP possessors and did update the tonal context in the auditory oddball tasks. This result suggests that the AP possessors do not always refer to the fixed tonal template in their memories when executing the oddball tasks and they employ working memory properly according to the difficulty of the auditory tasks.
Hirose
Hiroyuki
H
Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan. hirose-h@kb3.so-net.ne.jp
Kubota
Masaya
M
Kimura
Ikumi
I
Ohsawa
Maki
M
Yumoto
Masato
M
Sakakihara
Yoichi
Y
D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*