Absolute Pitch Shapes the Temporal Binding Window for Audiovisual Speech Perception in Noisy Environments

Absolute pitch (AP) is an inherent musical trait characterized by the ability to identify musical notes without a reference tone. Emerging evidence suggests that AP is also associated with nonmusical abilities, such as speech perception, beyond its typical musical context. However, it remains unclear how AP modulates speech perception when multisensory cues are involved. This study therefore investigates how AP modulates audiovisual speech perception in noise and how AP-related traits, including musicality and the five domains of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), relate to multisensory speech processing.

Seventy-four participants, comprising AP musicians, non-AP musicians, and nonmusicians, judged the audiovisual asynchrony and temporal order of speech stimuli under various stimulus onset asynchronies (±360, ±300, ±240, ±180, ±120, ±60, and 0 ms) to estimate their temporal binding windows. To assess audiovisual speech perception, participants identified audiovisual, audio-only, and visual-only Mandarin speech masked in noise at different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; 0, -6, -9, and -12 dB). AP-related functions, including perceptual musical skills and autistic traits across the five AQ domains, were also evaluated.

AP musicians exhibited significantly wider temporal binding windows for audiovisual speech, reflecting weaker integration ability. This reduced temporal integration was associated with poorer audiovisual speech perception in noise. Specifically, AP musicians derived smaller audiovisual speech benefits, particularly under less challenging listening conditions (i.e., 0 and -6 dB SNR). In contrast, non-AP musicians and nonmusicians showed similarly enhanced audiovisual benefits, suggesting no musician advantage when AP ability is comparable. Notably, the widening of temporal binding windows in AP musicians correlated with higher autistic traits but was unrelated to music training (e.g., age of onset or cumulative practice).

Collectively, these results provide no evidence of a musician advantage for audiovisual speech perception in noisy environments. Instead, AP is associated with an enlarged audiovisual temporal binding window, which correlates with deficits in audiovisual speech perception. Our findings suggest that AP can influence multisensory speech processing, with implications for enhancing speech comprehension through multisensory-focused training across various settings.

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.32257107.