pitch discrimination performance in musicians

[Christophe Micheyl <cmicheyl@xxxxxxx>]

Dear Roy and List,
There are some published data on the question of pitch discrimination 
performance in musicians, compared to non-musicians. In particular:
- Spiegel and Watson (1984) Performance on frequency-discrimination 
tasks by musicians and non-musicians. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 76, 1960-1965.
- Kishon-Rabin, Amir, Vexler, and Zaltz (2001) Pitch discrimination: are 
professional musicians better than non-musicians? J Basic Clin Physiol 
Pharmacol 12, 125-143.
- Micheyl, Delhommeau, Perrot, and Oxenham (2006) Influence of musical 
and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination. Hear. Res. 219, 
36-47.
The results of these studies concur to demonstrate statistically lower 
frequency- and F0-discrimination limens in musicians compared to 
non-musicians.
It takes several hours of practice of the pitch-discrimination task, for 
the latter group to obtain thresholds that are as low (on average) as 
those of the musicians -- with substantial inter-individual differences 
in both initial performance and improvement (see Micheyl et al., 2006 
for details).

Christophe Micheyl
Research Associate
Department of Psychology
University of Minnesota
N640b Elliott Hall
75 East River Road
Minneapolis MN 55455-0344
cmicheyl@xxxxxxx
Tel: 612 626 3291
Fax: 612 626 3359


Date:    Tue, 6 Feb 2007 13:52:16 +0000
From:    Roy Patterson <rdp1@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Five string bass

It is unlikely that it is the ears that are trained. It is more likely
to be the brain, or the use of words to describe perceptions. But to
begin with we need to understand just what it is that trained musicians
can do with low notes that the rest of us can't.

Do you really think they can reliably make finer pitch discriminations?
I understand that they think they can, but is it true of the population
of trained musicians? And if it is true, is it a big difference?
If so, someone should try and demonstrate just how much better they are.

Regards Roy P

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