Absolute pitch? Scientists say: "No such thing!"

[jancivil]

a lot of the comments here are ignoring or misconstructing the word 'absolute'. tonal inflections in language vis a vis absolute pitch? Come on.

[woggle]

no there's no pre-wiring for a partticular languahe

Or spelling in your case... :hihi:

I'm not suggesting that someone from Asia can't learn a language from Europe, but brains are more prepared for the language family where their racial roots lie than for somewhere far flung. There's no reason why that brain can't learn from a different language family, it's just that there's more going on to rewire the neurones as development takes place.

Speaking as an ex-neuroscientist that's not something I have heard about and seems incredibly unlikely. Keep in mind that people start hearing in utero so are learning sound from the external environment in utero

[robogone]

no there's no pre-wiring for a partticular languahe

Or spelling in your case...

I'm not suggesting that someone from Asia can't learn a language from Europe, but brains are more prepared for the language family where their racial roots lie than for somewhere far flung. There's no reason why that brain can't learn from a different language family, it's just that there's more going on to rewire the neurones as development takes place.

Speaking as an ex-neuroscientist that's not something I have heard about and seems incredibly unlikely. Keep in mind that people start hearing in utero so are learning sound from the external environment in utero

Here's my source for that:

http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Your-Chil ... rd_title_0

[Hink]

well I live in a city that is very, very culturally diverse and I have met a ton of kids who speak both their native language and English without any noticeable accent. I have always been amazed how not only they learn two languages as easy as one but also how quickly and at how a young age they can tell the difference between the two languages...sometimes before they even understand the concept of two languages.

My main point about Asian dialects or tonal based dialects is that some people believe that people of Asian descent are more prone to perfect pitch. I think that has some merit to it but it does not mean that being Asian means having perfect pitch. I think those raised on tonal dialects by nature detect slighter pitch changes as well as other lilts in language. However when applied to music and perfect pitch detecting pitch changes and identifying pitch changes are two different things. Even then like I said about myself, I can do well identifying intervals but not just identifying single notes without a reference note, so identifying pitch changes an identifying the actual note are two different things as well.

I do believe that while perhaps not born with it, some people seem to be able to identify pitches at young ages and even before they are able to communicate which leads to the suggestion for some that they were born with it. While the truth (imo) is that their perception of tones is just more acute than that of others thus making it just one more trait that makes us all a little different

[dalor]

Newborn babies start learning language in the womb—and are born with what you might call accents, a new study of crying babies says.

[SODDI]

So there aren't any hardwired neurons for a certain language.

I don't really disagree with you, but...

There is definitely a genetically-coded area of the physical brain of modern humans that gives us the ability to process and manipulate a language - not any specific language, but a human language. Damage to this area of the brain, like by a stroke or physical trauma, will impare a person's ability to speak. Aphasia is one of the results. Seeing someone you know, an intelligent person, unable to cognitively render the processes of speech is a wrenching experience.

"Hard-wiring" doesn't stop at the moment a foetus stops forming. Deep brain structures continue forming in the infant's brain up to about 3 - the brain is in the process of hard-wiring itself. Important stuff like spatial orientation, muscle control, balancing yourself when you stand up, affection. They are more than memories - they have become organic parts of the brain.

And language.

The ability to perfectly recognize a pitch may be hard-coded into our language center. There are a greater proportion of "perfect pitch-ers" in speakers of a tonal language like Mandarin or Vietnamese.

According to "Music, the Brain, and Ecstacy" by Robert Jourdain, when Maurice Ravel suffered a major brain injury, he became unable to write down the musical ideas he had in his mind. And he lost the use of laguage.

[woggle]

no there's no pre-wiring for a partticular languahe

Or spelling in your case... :hihi:

I'm not suggesting that someone from Asia can't learn a language from Europe, but brains are more prepared for the language family where their racial roots lie than for somewhere far flung. There's no reason why that brain can't learn from a different language family, it's just that there's more going on to rewire the neurones as development takes place.

Speaking as an ex-neuroscientist that's not something I have heard about and seems incredibly unlikely. Keep in mind that people start hearing in utero so are learning sound from the external environment in utero

Here's my source for that:

http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Your-Chil ... rd_title_0

thanks, they're some good authors - but I won't be buying it and reading it to find the part about prewired tendencies for language learning :) As I implied before, language learning begins in utero but that doesn't mean children are hard-wired based on 'racial' grounds. In particular, pitch contours are learnt whilst still in the womb - As 'race' is highly contested, and genetic distributions don't neatly follow what are typically thought of as external indicators of race, I need to see some fairly compelling evidence for the hypothesis that there are differences in language learning, at the level of wiring, based on race rather than environment. Worth keeping in mind we know shit about wiring and function - even the idea that specific wiring exists for fine grained functions is up for grabs.

[Tricky-Loops]

That's what wikipedia says:

Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of the following abilities, achieved without a reference tone:
- Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. A, B, C♯) played on various instruments.
- Name the key of a given piece of tonal music.
- Reproduce a piece of tonal music in the correct key days after hearing it.
- Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass.
- Accurately sing a named pitch.
- Name the pitches of common everyday sounds such as car horns and alarms.

These are all LEARNED skills about music theory. Nobody is born and knows instantly all notes, keys of music, chords...

So it can't be solely innate!

[Tricky-Loops]

So there aren't any hardwired neurons for a certain language.

I don't really disagree with you, but...

There is definitely a genetically-coded area of the physical brain of modern humans that gives us the ability to process and manipulate a language - not any specific language, but a human language. Damage to this area of the brain, like by a stroke or physical trauma, will impare a person's ability to speak. Aphasia is one of the results. Seeing someone you know, an intelligent person, unable to cognitively render the processes of speech is a wrenching experience.

Which I didn't doubt, anyway...

Of course there is the (innate) ability to learn a language and to communicate. But not for a particular language.

Imagine someone has a Chinese mother and an English father and his grandfather is German and his grandmother Japanese (and there really are such people) -- which hardwired language preference should the poor child have?

(Should I ask the raciologists? They've gathered much experience about those things in the Nazi era...innate preferences of races...which wasn't true, anyway)

[SODDI]

Imagine someone has a Chinese mother and an English father and his grandfather is German and his grandmother Japanese (and there really are such people) -- which hardwired language preference should the poor child have?

It won't be a preference per se, but rather the language that is spoken to and with the child. If the child is primarily with the mother and the mother speaks Chinese to the child, then the child's language will be Chinese - and it will be pretty much hard-coded Chinese. But if the father spends a lot of with the kid and speaks only German, then the child's other language will be German - also semi-hard-coded.

It's not really that unimaginable. In America right now, there are millions of children whose "birth" language is Spanish, spoken by recent Central American immigrants with very little facility in English. But in the U.S. the primary cultural language is English, so from a very early age these kids are forced to become bilingual very very rapidly. It is not unusual to see a 10 year-old translating for their parents or grandparents. They are natively bilingual.

And they should be envied in a way - not only are they going to be able to speak two languages, right down at the very basic language level, but they learned at the time when it is most easy for them to learn, 2 - 5. This facility can make it much easier for them to learn additional languages later on in life. (This all is predicated on having a good, nurturing learning environment - which is not gonna happen in America ever again.)

And that 2-5 year-old time span - that's exactly when you teach children about music and get kids with absolute pitch.

[Hink]

Nobody is born and knows instantly all notes, keys of music, chords...

and nobody is saying that, look at your absolute "knows instantly"...that's where you are missing the point

[xtp]

I read an article once that stated most people can come close to perfect pitch by taking a song they know really well (or even making one up) in a known key, and singing it in their head. It turns out that for music deep in our memory, we almost always come close to the singing in the key we remember.

Damned if it doesn't work pretty well most of the time. I use "Come Sail Away" to get near C. I can usually tune a guitar within a semitone if I concentrate.

Not sure what the use of that is (and it works very poorly when you've been listening to music, etc.), but it's interesting nonetheless.

That is interesting. I have the same thing, strangely the same note 'C' is the one i can hear in my head. I have never owned a guitar tuner, I have a tuning fork in 'A', but only use it for a reference occasionally.

The song I hear is the Bob Dylan version of the Josh White interpretation of the old blues song "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed" or as it is more commonly known "In My Time of Dying".

I have no idea what key either of the two artists sing it in, but I hear the word 'dying' as a 'C' note.

[Hink]

I read an article once that stated most people can come close to perfect pitch by taking a song they know really well (or even making one up) in a known key, and singing it in their head. It turns out that for music deep in our memory, we almost always come close to the singing in the key we remember.

Damned if it doesn't work pretty well most of the time. I use "Come Sail Away" to get near C. I can usually tune a guitar within a semitone if I concentrate.

Not sure what the use of that is (and it works very poorly when you've been listening to music, etc.), but it's interesting nonetheless.

That is interesting. I have the same thing, strangely the same note 'C' is the one i can hear in my head. I have never owned a guitar tuner, I have a tuning fork in 'A', but only use it for a reference occasionally.

The song I hear is the Bob Dylan version of the Josh White interpretation of the old blues song "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed" or as it is more commonly known "In My Time of Dying".

I have no idea what key either of the two artists sing it in, but I hear the word 'dying' as a 'C' note.

for years I had "tuning songs" but no tuner, I write music now so I will use a tuner for obvious reasons. However for decades it was certain songs for reference and I tuned by ear. I also had a decent turntable (yes this was in the day of LPs and Cassettes) which had a strobe on it so I could tune it as well.

Once I was reading a book a few years ago about composing and it mentioned how the great composers could hear the notes in their head and compose in their head. I was stunned, not that it was a "trick" of the great composers but the fact it was special. I'm just me, nothing great here but I have been able to hear notes in my head since I can remember and once again my pitch may not be perfect but my intervals are pretty damn close in my head as I'm sure is the way with a lot of people here...I thought that was natural

[cryophonik]

I read an article once that stated most people can come close to perfect pitch by taking a song they know really well (or even making one up) in a known key, and singing it in their head. It turns out that for music deep in our memory, we almost always come close to the singing in the key we remember.

I don't have anything close to perfect pitch, but I've been able to train my ears & brain to recognize the root tones of a few songs in the past and, on some occasions, I've actually been able to identify the keys of other songs just from hearing them by recognizing it as the same key as one of my "reference" songs. But, that was when I was younger and performed those same reference songs ad nauseum - as a bassist, the tonic note (G) just got locked in my brain. I just tried to see if I could hum the root tone of one of those songs and checked it against a piano app on my iPad, but was flat by about a semitone.

I think the amount of people people who state they have absolute pitch is way overstated and far less that barg about perfect pitch actually have it...

Agreed. Over the years, I've met countless people who claimed to have absolute perfect pitch. But, I'm the type of person who will always challenge them by telling them to sing a given note or identify a random note and, of course, they would fail every time. There were a few people in my sightreading/ear training courses back in the day that were as close as I've ever encountered to having absolute perfect pitch, though, but none of them claimed to have it. They could just start singing any given song a capella with no reference note and were almost always right on key.

Just out of curiosity, did anybody happen to obtain the full journal article in the OP? Just wondering if there were any other juicy tidbits in there.

[woggle]

I'm sure is the way with a lot of people here...I thought that was natural :shrug:

What is natural is the ability to learn that - like a lot of learning there is probably a major advantage in starting that learning young, there will be natural variation in ability to learn, but it will also be possible to improve through practice at any age.
(learning language related sound discriminations is heavily constrained by age though)