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Incidental learning occurs rather rapidly and effortlessly in a range of different domains, such as early language acquisition, motor learning, and a wide range of more arbitrary laboratory tasks. The present report explores the efficacy of an incidental learning task in the acquisition of pitch-label associations, that is, the ability to identify and name musical notes by ear. In experiment 1, 2 and 3 participants were asked to respond to the target (a note name) while ignoring the cues (either a tone or, in one experiment, a tone with a note position). In a pretest and posttest, we further analyzed their ability to guess the name of the tone in a tone naming task. We also explored the role of intentionality in acquiring and remembering pitch-label associations, but there were only small suggestive trends for slightly better performance for a group instructed to try to learn the contingencies compared to a purely incidental learning group (i.e., with no instructions about the contingencies), suggesting that learning is at least primarily incidental. Our research opens up new venues for the investigations of incidental learning related to the acquisition of musical features useful to performance (how to play).

Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify and name the pitch of a sound without external reference. Often, accuracy and speed at naming isolated musical pitches are correlated with demographic, biological, and acoustical parameters to gain insight into the genesis and evolution of this ability in specific cohorts. However, the majority of those studies were conducted in North America, Europe, or Asia. To fill this gap, here we investigated the pitch-naming performance in a large population of Brazilian conservatory musicians ( = 200). As previously shown, we found that the population performance was rather a continuum than an \" \" ability. By comparing the observed distribution of correct responses to a theoretical binomial distribution, we estimated the prevalence of AP as being 18% amongst regular music students. High accuracy thresholds (e.g., 85% of correct responses) yielded a prevalence of 4%, suggesting that AP might have been underestimated in previous reports. Irrespective of the threshold used, AP prevalence was higher in musicians who started their musical practice and formal musical education early in life. Finally, we compared the performance of those music students (average proficiency group) with another group of students selected to take part in the conservatory orchestra (high proficiency group, = 30). Interestingly, the prevalence of AP was higher in the latter in comparison to the former group. In addition, even when the response was incorrect, the mean absolute deviation from the correct response was smaller in the high proficiency group compared to the average proficiency group (Glass's Δ: 0.5). Taken together, our results show that the prevalence of AP in Brazilian students is similar to other non-tonal language populations, although this measure is highly dependent on the scoring threshold used. Despite corroborating that early involvement with musical practice and formal education can foster AP ability, the present data suggest that music proficiency may also play an important role in AP expression.

Attempting to explain the perceptual qualities of pitch has proven to be, and remains, a difficult problem. The wide range of sounds which elicit pitch and a lack of agreement across neurophysiological studies on how pitch is encoded by the brain have made this attempt more difficult. In describing the potential neural mechanisms by which pitch may be processed, a number of neural networks have been proposed and implemented. However, no unsupervised neural networks with biologically accurate cochlear inputs have yet been demonstrated. This paper proposes a simple system in which pitch representing neurons are produced in a biologically plausible setting. Purely unsupervised regimes of neural network learning are implemented and these prove to be sufficient in identifying the pitch of sounds with a variety of spectral profiles, including sounds with missing fundamental frequencies and iterated rippled noises.

Previous studies have used task-related fMRI to investigate the neural basis of pitch identification (PI), but no study has examined the associations between resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and PI ability. Using a large sample of Chinese non-musicians (N = 320, with 56 having prior musical training), the current study examined the associations among musical training, PI ability, and RSFC. Results showed that musical training was associated with increased RSFC within the networks for multiple cognitive functions (such as vision, phonology, semantics, auditory encoding, and executive functions). PI ability was associated with RSFC with regions for perceptual and auditory encoding for participants with musical training, and with RSFC with regions for short-term memory, semantics, and phonology for participants without musical training.

Background Impaired auditory performance has been considered as marker for depression. The present study tested whether pitch perception is affected in depression and whether the impairment is task-specific or reflects global dysfunction. Methods Twelve depressive in-patients and 12 non-depressive participants, half of the sample women, volunteered. The participants performed pitch identification using a four-choice reaction task, pitch contour perception, and pitch discrimination. Results During pitch identification but not during pitch contour perception or pitch discrimination, depressive patients responded less accurate than non-depressive participants ( F  = 3.3, p  = 0.047). An analysis of covariates revealed that only female but not male depressive patients identified pitches poorly ( Z  = −2.2, p  = 0.025) and inaccurate pitch identification correlated with high scores in the Beck Depression Inventory in women ( r  = −0.8, p  = 0.001) but not in men ( r  = −0.1, p  = 0.745). Patients did not differ from controls in reaction time or responsiveness. Conclusions Impaired pitch perception in depression is task-specific. Therefore, cognitive deficits in depression are circumscribed and not global. Reduced pitch identification in depression was associated with female sex. We suggest that impaired pitch identification merits attention as a potential marker for depression in women.

This paper outlines an experimental investigation conducted at the INCAS trisonic wind tunnel, focusing on the determination of pitch damping coefficient. The model used for this investigation is the Basic Finner Model, a standard model for dynamic tests which consists in a cone-cylinder body with four rectangular fins. The study aims to evaluate the influence of various parameters—including the Mach number, angle of attack, reduced frequency, center of rotation, and roll angle—on pitch damping coefficient. The employed method for determining these coefficients is the free oscillation method which consists in measuring the model oscillation in free stream after an initial perturbation. In order to perform these dynamic tests in the wind tunnel, a dedicated rig was developed to initiate the model’s oscillation using a linear servo-actuator and to record its oscillation using a strain gauge. The results obtained from the experiments illustrate how each parameter impacts the pitch damping coefficient, highlighting the precision of the measurements. The paper’s conclusion presents that the developed rig and the method used provide accurate results, and the variation in different parameters can change the damping coefficient.

In this paper, we propose a method based on probabilistic mixture model decomposition that can simultaneously identify musical instrument types, estimate pitches and assign each pitch to its source instrument in monaural polyphonic audio containing multiple sources. In the proposed system, the probability density function (PDF) of the observed mixture note is treated as a weighted sum approximation of all possible note models. These note models, covering 14 instruments and all their possible pitches, describe their dynamic frequency envelopes in terms of probability. The weight coefficients, indicating the probabilities of the existence of pitches of a certain type of instrument, are estimated using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. The weight coefficients are used to detect the types of source instruments and the pitches. The results of experiments involving 14 instruments within a designated pitch range F3–F6 (37 pitches) demonstrate a good discrimination capability, especially in instrument identification and instrument-pitch identification. For the entire system including the note onset detection tool, using quartet polyphonic recordings, the average F-measure values of instrument-pitch identification, instrument identification and pitch estimation were 55.4, 62.5 and 86 % respectively.

The relationships between human voice parameters and body dimensions have been previously described, but the connections between voice and face geometry remain poorly researched. This study aims to determine the relationships between face dimensions and acoustic parameters in both sexes and examines 111 adult participants (30 males). Each participant undergoes voice recording, which includes five sustained vowels, along with anthropometric measurements of the neck, head, and face regions. Comparisons between voice parameters and the head, face, and neck regions are conducted employing Pearson’s correlation coefficients (r) and a multiple linear regression model. The results reveal significant relationships between head, neck, face dimensions and acoustic parameters in both sexes. Males with higher noses, greater head circumferences, and wider faces tend to have lower formants and more stable voices. Females with larger head circumferences had lower formant values, and those with greater neck circumferences tend to have more stable voices. Also, females with increased nose height have a lower fourth formant (F4). Moreover, females with wider faces, noses, and jaws tend to have less rough voices (lower jitter) and longer maximum phonation time (MPT). These findings may be useful for scientists and law enforcement authorities in creating algorithms that build face models based on voice signals.

Absolute pitch (AP) is the rare ability to name any musical note without the use of a reference note. Given that genuine AP representations are based on the identification of isolated notes by their tone chroma , they are considered to be invariant to (1) surrounding tonal context, (2) changes in instrumental timbre, and (3) changes in octave register. However, there is considerable variability in the literature in terms of how AP is trained and tested along these dimensions, making recent claims about AP learning difficult to assess. Here, we examined the effect of tonal context on participant success with a single-note identification training paradigm, including how learning generalized to an untested instrument and octave. We found that participants were able to rapidly learn to distinguish C from other notes, with and without feedback and regardless of the tonal context in which C was presented. Participants were also able to partly generalize this skill to an untrained instrument. However, participants displayed the weakest generalization in recognizing C in a higher octave. The results indicate that participants were likely attending to pitch height in addition to pitch chroma – a conjecture that was supported by analyzing the pattern of response errors. These findings highlight the complex nature of note representation in AP, which requires note identification across contexts, going beyond the simple storage of a note fundamental. The importance of standardizing testing that spans both timbre and octave in assessing AP and further implications on past literature and future work are discussed.