The characteristics of pitch perception in absolute pitch possessors.

ABSTRACT
Pitch perception is determined by both place and temporal cues. To explore if any differences exist in the use of these cues depending on musical experiences and abilities, pitch identification experiments with and without pitch references were conducted for four subject groups: absolute pitch musicians (AP), partial AP musicians (PAP), non-AP musicians (NAP(M)), and non-AP non-musicians (NAP(NM)). Three types of stimuli were used to manipulate place and temporal cues independently: narrow band noises (NBN) which provide strong place cue but ambiguous temporal cue, iterated rippled noises (IRN) which provide only temporal cue, and sinusoidal tones which provide both cues. It was found that chroma identification was poorer with NBN, and height judgment was poorer with IRN. These results indicate that the temporal cue is important for chroma identification, and the place cue is important for height judgment. Additionally, it was indicated that AP listeners can utilize temporal cues effectively when they identify musical pitch.