Reliability of pitch discrimination of vowel and piano tones

This study evaluated the reliability of pitch judgments as a basic step toward increasing interrater and intrarater reliability of multidimensional perceptual judgments of the speaking voice. Forty-five undergraduate university students studying speech/language pathology made piano-to-piano tone pitch matches and vowel-to-piano pitch matches using a computer software program. The mean percentage correct of piano-to-piano tone matches was 91.3% and of vowel-to-piano matches was 75.6%. Subjects who scored 100% correct were significantly faster at the pitch matching task. Further research of perceptual judgments of pitch and its contribution to multidimensional rating tasks is warranted.