any examples of acquired absolute pitch?

[Anthony Knittel <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, i've found some interesting comments on absolute pitch on this 
mailing list and was wondering if anyone has heard of any examples of 
people who have acquired absolute pitch somehow during their later 
lives, ie not in early childhood development.

There is a clear trend between absolute pitch (AP) and autism, and many 
autistic savants with musical talents (which tend to be more in terms of 
music reproduction ability than creative composition) that have been 
examined also have AP. There are numerous examples of people who have 
acquired special abilities such as those exhibited by autistic savants 
as a result of injury or other non-developmental processes. I haven't 
however heard of any examples of people who have acquired AP later in 
life, it would be very useful if anyone knows of any examples.

There are suggestions that AP development is an independent process that 
is present in autistic and non-autistic people, and that presence of AP 
is pre-requisite for development of special musical abilities for 
savants. This model would suggest that cases of later-life AP 
development would be unlikely, however if there are any examples of 
people developing AP later in life for example through brain injury, 
similar to how savant-like special abilities have been shown to be 
developed (essentially spontaneously), it would be very useful.



thanks

Anthony





a couple of references:

** <http://www.brams.umontreal.ca/plab/publications/article/32>Absolute 
pitch in autism: a case study, L Mottron, I Peretz, S Belleville, N 
Rouleau - Neurocase, 1999

Musical savants: exceptional skill in the mentally retarded, Miller L K, 
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989: 266

Absolute pitch in blind musicians, Roy H. Hamilton, Alvaro Pascual-Leone 
and Gottfried Schlaug, NeuroReport Vol 15 No 5, 9 April 2004




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