title: Dissociation of procedural and semantic memory in absolute-pitch processing.
abstract: We describe two memory-retrieval systems in absolute-pitch (AP) processing and propose existence of a universal internal pitch template to which subpopulations of musicians selectively gain access through the two systems. In Experiment I, AP and control musicians adjusted the frequency of a pure tone to match the pitch of a visually displayed randomly selected musical note. In Experiment II the same subjects vocally produced within 2s the pitch associated with a randomly selected musical note label. AP musicians, but not controls, were highly accurate in frequency matching. Surprisingly, both AP and non-AP groups were extremely accurate in voicing the target pitch as determined from an FFT of the recorded voiced notes (i.e., sigma=0.97, 0.90 semitones, respectively). Spectrogram analysis showed that notes voiced by non-AP musicians are accurate from onset of voicing suggesting that pitch accuracy does not result from an auditory-motor feedback loop. Findings support existence of two memory-retrieval systems for musical pitch: a semantic associative form of memory used by AP musicians, and a more widespread form of procedural memory which allows precise access to internal pitch representations through the vocal-motor system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Sciences and The Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA.
authors.forename: I-Hui
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Hsieh
authors.forename: Kourosh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saberi
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D009146:Music; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D014831:Voice