Re: AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research

[Rebecca Mercuri <mercuri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the days when there used to be more "jingle" type ads on TV,
if you asked a kid to sing the commercial, they'd typically sing
it on or very close to the original pitch the ad was in. I recall
some years ago reading or hearing about a study where the popular
acapella baseball songs (ones not prompted by the stadium organist)
were surveyed and folks around the US sang those at the same pitch
as well.

My personal theory is that it's a physical memory -- song singing
involves the muscles (or whatever they are) in the throat/larynx
and there's probably some feedback that provides a form of pitch
memory as in "that feels like the comfortable singing pitch I
know for that song." Anyone know of any work on that angle?

Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.