Subject: Re: Pitch learning From: Robert Zatorre <robert.zatorre@xxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 10:51:02 -0500 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>for a neuroimaging perspective on learning to associate chord names with their corresponding sound, see: Bermudez, P. & Zatorre, R.J. (2005) Conditional Associative Memory for Musical Stimuli in Nonmusicians: Implications for Absolute Pitch. Journal of Neuroscience, 25, 7718-7723 the bottom line is that associative memory mechanisms seen in other domains requiring abstract "labelling" seem to be operative, and involve portions of the posterior dorsolateral frontal cortex. Robert Ole Kühl wrote: > Martin Braun wrote: > > "It's timbre learning. Automatic association of timbre and chroma, the > latter > being derived from the summation of octave-spaced partials, results in a > secure "secondary" pitch perception. > > An analogy is chord identification. Highly trained musicians can identify > chord categories from the timbre of a chord." > > I find this idea very interesting, and believe it to be true as I have > long suspected it to be the case that chord learning is actually timbre > learning. If there is any empirical evidence for this I would be > most grateful for the particulars. > > Incidentally, this seems to be not only a higher order function, but > also an example of what in the lingo of cognitive semantics would be > called conceptual integration or "blending". We could say that we > conceptualize a pitch through the integration of information from two > different domains: a perceived timbre domain and a learned schema for > partials. > > Best > Ole > > > > Ole Kühl > kyhl@xxxxxxxx <mailto:kyhl@xxxxxxxx> > www.cogmus.com <http://www.cogmus.com> -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Robert J. Zatorre, Ph.D. Montreal Neurological Institute 3801 University St. Montreal, QC Canada H3A 2B4 phone: 1-514-398-8903 fax: 1-514-398-1338 e-mail: robert.zatorre@xxxxxxxx web site: www.zlab.mcgill.ca