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Related Experiment Video

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Learning fast and accurate absolute pitch judgment in adulthood.

Yetta Kwailing Wong1,2, Leo Y T Cheung3, Vince S H Ngan4

  • 1School of Psychology, University of Surrey, 43AC05, Lewis Carroll Building, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK. yetta.wong@gmail.com.

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|February 12, 2025
PubMed
Summary

Adults can acquire absolute pitch (AP), the ability to identify musical notes without reference. An 8-week online training program demonstrated significant improvements in AP skills, challenging the critical period hypothesis for this ability.

Keywords:
Critical periodMusic cognitionPerceptual expertisePerceptual learningSound recognition

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Area of Science:

  • Auditory Neuroscience
  • Music Cognition
  • Perceptual Learning

Background:

  • Absolute pitch (AP) is traditionally thought to require genetic predisposition and early musical training within a critical period.
  • Recent research suggests AP may be learnable in adulthood, but potential confounding factors need investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the learnability of absolute pitch (AP) in adults using a controlled online training program.
  • To address concerns about confounding factors in previous adult AP acquisition studies.

Main Methods:

  • An 8-week online computerized training program was developed.
  • Twelve adult musicians completed over 15,000 training trials.
  • Performance was assessed based on pitch naming accuracy and response time.

Main Results:

  • Participants learned to identify an average of 7.08 pitches with over 90% accuracy.
  • Pitch naming accuracy significantly improved by 128.1%, and error size reduced by 42.7%.
  • Improvements generalized partially to untrained timbres.

Conclusions:

  • The study provides strong evidence for the learnability of absolute pitch judgment in adulthood.
  • These findings suggest AP acquisition is possible beyond the critical period, akin to other cognitive abilities.