Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Publication Date
Spring 5-1-2023
Journal
Undergraduate Honours Theses
Abstract
Most individuals can tell when a familiar melody has been shifted in pitch by as little as one semitone – the smallest pitch difference found in Western music notation. These findings suggest that good absolute pitch memory is a widespread ability; however, the individual differences that relate to this form of pitch memory are understudied. The present study was designed to examine how individual differences in tonal working memory precision, singing ability, auditory imagery ability, and musical training may contribute to how individuals vary in their long-term memory for the absolute pitch of popular music recordings. Participants completed a tone adjustment task which has been previously used to measure tonal working memory. They were asked to judge whether popular recordings had been shifted in pitch or not as a measure of long-term absolute pitch memory. They were then asked to rate the vividness and ease with which they thought they could change auditory images. Finally, participants completed a singing accuracy task to measure accuracy in vocal production of pitches, which was followed by a short musical training questionnaire. The results indicated that participants with more precise tonal working memory ability and better singing accuracy had better long-term absolute memory for pitch. Tonal working memory precision was also the only variable that significantly predicted APM performance alongside the other measured variables. These results suggest that auditory working memory precision is likely connected to precise long-term representations of pitch in memory, however, considerations should be made about how long-term pitch memory is operationalized.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
Dr. Stephen Van Hedger Supervisor