Abstract:
Absolute pitch is the name given to the rare ability to identify a musical note in an automatic and effortless manner without the need for a reference tone. Those individuals with absolute pitch can, for example, name the note they hear, identify all of the tones of a given chord, and/or name the pitches of everyday sounds, such as car horns or sirens. Hence, absolute pitch can be seen as providing a rare example of absolute sensory judgment in audition. Surprisingly, however, the intriguing question of whether such an ability presents unique features in the domain of sensory perception, or whether instead similar perceptual skills also exist in other sensory domains, has not been explicitly addressed previously. In this paper, this question is addressed by systematically reviewing research on absolute pitch using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) method. Thereafter, we compare absolute pitch with two rare types of sensory experience, namely synaesthesia and eidetic memory, to understand if and how these phenomena exhibit similar features to absolute pitch. Furthermore, a common absolute perceptual ability that has been often compared to absolute pitch, namely colour perception, is also discussed. Arguments are provided supporting the notion that none of the examined abilities can be considered like absolute pitch. Therefore, we conclude by suggesting that absolute pitch does indeed appear to constitute a unique kind of absolute sensory judgment in humans, and we discuss some open issues and novel directions for future research in absolute pitch.
摘要:
绝对音高是指在不需要参考音调的情况下以自动且毫不费力的方式识别音符的罕见能力。那些有绝对音高的人可以,例如,说出他们听到的音符,识别给定和弦的所有音调,和/或命名日常声音的音高,如汽车喇叭或警报器。因此,绝对音高可以被视为在试听中提供绝对感官判断的罕见例子。令人惊讶的是,然而,有趣的问题是,这种能力是否在感官知觉领域呈现独特的特征,或者类似的感知技能是否也存在于其他感官领域,以前没有明确解决。在本文中,通过使用PRISMA(系统评估和荟萃分析的首选报告项目)方法系统地回顾绝对音高的研究,解决了这个问题。此后,我们将绝对音高与两种罕见的感官体验进行比较,即通感和全感记忆,了解这些现象是否以及如何表现出与绝对音高相似的特征。此外,一种常见的绝对感知能力,经常被比作绝对音高,即颜色感知,也讨论了。提供了支持以下观点的论点:没有一个被检查的能力可以被视为绝对音高。因此,我们得出的结论是,绝对音高确实似乎构成了人类独特的绝对感官判断,我们讨论了绝对音高的一些悬而未决的问题和未来研究的新方向。