Short-term pitch memory predicts both incidentally and intentionally acquired absolute pitch categories

Tonal short-term memory has been positively associated with both incidentally acquired absolute pitch memory (e.g., for popular songs) and explicitly learned absolute pitch (AP) categories; however, the relationship between these constructs has not been directly tested within the same individuals. The current study investigated how tonal short-term memory relates to both incidentally and intentionally acquired AP. Participants (n = 192) completed a tonal short-term memory task, an incidental AP task, and an AP categorization task. The tonal short-term assessment involved adjusting a starting tone to match a target tone. The incidental AP task involved judging whether excerpts of popular songs were presented in the correct key. The AP categorization task involved associating six pitch chroma categories with arbitrary labels, including a generalization test that used Shepard tones to discourage pitch height cues. We found that all three pitch measures were positively correlated with one another. Critically, however, we found that tonal short-term memory fully mediated the relationship between incidental AP and explicit AP categorization. This finding held even when controlling for musical training and tonal language fluency. Overall, these results suggest that pitch memory is a consistent individual difference measure across different timescales and different measures (e.g., incidental measures, explicit measures). However, tonal short-term memory appears to be foundational to both incidentally acquired and explicitly learned AP categories.