title: People with absolute pitch process tones with producing P300.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hirose
authors.forename: Masaya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: Ikumi
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Maki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ohsawa
authors.forename: Masato
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yumoto
authors.forename: Yoichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sakakihara
mesh_terms: 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*