Pitch discrimination accuracy has been found to be affected by many factors, including handedness, musical training, interfering stimuli, and spatial location of the auditory stimulus. Separating the stimulus input location of interference tones from initial (reference) and final (comparison) tones leads to more accurate pitch discrimination, but the effects of spatial location relationships between the reference, interference, and comparison tones have not been fully explored. This study examined the impact of stimulus spatial location in 24 young, nonmusician females. Participants determined whether the pitch of reference and comparison tones were the same or different in 20 pitch discrimination conditions with varied interference, spatial relationships, and frequencies. Findings revealed that pitch discrimination accuracy was significantly better when (a) there was no interference, (b) the comparison tone was presented to the contralateral brain hemisphere from reference and interference tones, and (c) the comparison tone was presented to the left ear. We discussed the implications of these findings for therapy programs to strengthen pitch discrimination abilities.
AllenE. J.BurtonP. C.OlmanC. A.OxenhamA. J. (2017).
Representations of pitch and timbre variation in human auditory cortex.The Journal of Neuroscience,
37(5), 1284–1293.
2.
American National Standards Institute. (2003). American National Standard maximum permissible ambient noise levels for audiometric test rooms (ANSI S3.1-1991 (R 2003)).
New York, NY:
Author.
3.
AmirO.AmirN.Kishon-RabinL. (2003).
The effect of superior auditory skills on vocal accuracy.The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
113, 1102–1108.
4.
AnnettM. (2004).
Hand preference observed in large healthy samples: Classification, norms, and interpretations of increased non-right-handedness by the right shift theory.British Journal of Psychology,
95, 339–353.
5.
AyotteJ.PeretzI.HydeK. (2002).
Congenital amusia: A group study of adults afflicted with a music-specific disorder.Brain,
125, 238–251.
6.
BaddeleyA. D.HitchG. J. (1974).
Working memory. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation,
8, 47–90.
7.
BellisT. J. (1999).
Subprofiles of central auditory processing disorders.Educational Audiology Review,
2, 9–14.
8.
BianchiF.HjortkjaerJ.SanturetteS.ZatorreR. J.SiebnerH. R.DauT. (2017).
Subcortical and cortical correlates of pitch discrimination: Evidence for two levels of neuroplasticity in musicians.NeuroImage,
163, 398–412.
9.
BishopD. V. M. (2000). Pragmatic language impairment: A correlate of SLI, a distinct subgroup, or part of the autistic continuum? In BishopD. V. M.LeonardL. B. (Eds.), Speech and language impairments in children: Causes, characteristics, intervention and outcome (pp. 99–113).
Hove, England:
Psychology Press.
10.
ClementS.PlanchouC.BelandR.MotteJ.SamsonS. (2015).
Singing abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI).Frontiers in Psychology,
6, 420.
11.
CoffeyE. B. J.HerholzS. C.ChepesiukA. M. P.BailletS.ZatorreR. J. (2016).
Cortical contributions to the auditory frequency-following response revealed by MEG.Nature Communications,
7, 11070.
12.
CowanN. (1999). An embedded-processes model of working memory. In MiyakeA.ShahP. (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 62–101).
Cambridge, England,
Cambridge University Press.
13.
CudahyE.LeshowitzB. (1974).
Effects of a contralateral interference tone on auditory recognition.Perception & Psychophysics,
15(1), 16–20.
14.
DeutschD. (1970a). The deterioration of pitch information in memory (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California at San Diego, CA.
15.
DeutschD. (1970b).
Tones and numbers: Specificity of interference in short-term memory.Science,
168, 1604–1605.
16.
DeutschD. (1978a).
Interference in pitch memory as a function of ear of input.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,
30, 282–287.
17.
DeutschD. (1978b).
Pitch memory: An advantage for the left-handed.Science,
199(4328), 559–560.
18.
EstisJ.CoblentzJ.MooreR. (2009).
Effects of increasing time delays on pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals.Journal of Voice,
23(4), 439–445.
19.
EstisJ.Dean-ClaytorA.MooreR.RowellT. (2011).
Pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals: The impact of musical interference and noise.Journal of Voice,
25, 173–180.
20.
GaabN.SchlaugG. (2003).
The effect of musicianship on pitch memory in performance matched groups.Neuroreport,
14(18), 2291–2295.
21.
GelfandS. (2004). Hearing: An introduction to psychological and physiological acoustics (4th ed.).
New York, NY:
Marcel Dekker.
22.
GockelH. E.HafterE. R.MooreB. C. J. (2009).
Pitch discrimination interference: The role of ear of entry and of octave similarity.The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
125(1), 324–327.
23.
HeinrichA.SchneiderB.CraikF. (2008).
Investigating the influence of continuous babble on auditory short-term memory performance.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,
61, 735–751.
24.
HutkaS.BidelmanG.MorenoS. (2015).
Pitch expertise is not created equal: Cross-domain effects of musicianship and tone language experience on neural and behavioural discrimination of speech and music.Neuropsychologia,
71, 52–63.
25.
HydeK. L.PeretzI.ZatorreR. J. (2008).
Evidence for the role of the right auditory cortex in fine pitch resolution.Neuropsychologia,
46, 632–639.
26.
ImmJ.KangE.YounT.ParkH.KimJ. I.KangJ. I., . . . ParkH. J. (2008).
Different hemispheric specializations for pitch and audioverbal working memory.NeuroReport,
19, 99–103.
27.
KallmanH.CameronP.BecksteadJ.JoyceE. (1987).
Ear of input as a determinant of pitch-memory interference.Memory & Cognition,
15(5), 454–460.
28.
LehmannA.SchonwiesnerM. (2014).
Selective attention modulates human auditory brainstem responses: Relative contributions of frequency and spatial cues.PLoS One,
9(1), e85442. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0085442
29.
LoucasT.CharmanT.PicklesA.SimonoffE.ChandlerS.MeldrumD.BairdG. (2008).
Autistic symptomatology and language ability in autism spectrum disorder and specific language impairment.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
49(11), 1184–1192.
30.
MicheylC.DelhommeauK.PerrotX.OxenhamA. J. (2006).
Influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination.Hearing Research,
219, 36–47.
31.
MooreR. E.KeatonK.WattsC. (2007).
The role of pitch memory in pitch discrimination and pitch matching.Journal of Voice,
21, 560–567.
32.
Parbery-Clark, A., Skoe, E., Lam, C., & Kraus, N. (2009). Musician enhancement for speech-in-noise. Ear and Hearing, 30, 653--661.
33.
PechmannT.MohrG. (1992).
Interference in memory for tonal pitch: Implications for a working-memory model.Memory & Cognition,
20, 314–320.
34.
Penagos, H., Melcher, J. R., & Oxenham, A. J. (2004). A neural representation of pitch salience in nonprimary human auditory cortex revealed with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 6810--6815.
35.
PeretzI.HydeK. L. (2003).
What is specific to music processing? Insights from congenital amusia.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,
7, 362–367.
36.
SalameP.BaddeleyA. (1989).
Effects of background music on phonological short-term memory.The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,
41A, 107–122.
37.
Schulze, K., Zysset, S., Mueller, K., Friederici, A.D., & Koelsch, S. (2011). Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians. Human Brain Mapping, 32, 771--783.
38.
SemalC.DemanyL.UedaK.HalleP. (1996).
Speech versus nonspeech in pitch memory.The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
100, 1132–1140.
39.
SmithL. M.BartholomewA. J.BurnhamL. E.TillmannB.CirulliE. T. (2017).
Factors affecting pitch discrimination performance in a cohort of extensively phenotyped healthy volunteers.Scientific Reports,
7, 16480. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-16526-8
40.
WeaverA.DiGiovanniJ.RiesD. (2017).
Relationships among musical training and pitch matching in children and adults.The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
142, 2613.
41.
WierC. C.JesteadtW.GreenD. M. (1977).
Frequency discrimination as a function of frequency and sensation level.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
61, 178–184.
42.
Williamson, V.J., Baddeley, A.D., & Hitch, G.J. (2010). Musicians' and nonmusicians' short-term memory for verbal and musical sequences: comparing phonological similarity and pitch proximity. Memory and Cognition, 38, 163--175.
43.
ZatorreR.EvansA.MeyerE.GjeddeA. (1992).
Lateralization of phonetic and pitch discrimination in speech processing.Science,
256, 846–849.
44.
ZatorreR. J. (1988).
Pitch perception of complex tones and human temporal-lobe function.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,
84, 566–572.
