Subject: Re: Perception as memory From: Leon van Noorden <leonvannoorden@xxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:07:46 +0200 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Dear Pierre, I had nearly the same reaction as you, but I suppressed it. But now you are talking about it I have to disclose the reasons why I hesitated. Although AP reveals the 'chroma side' of pitch it has a lot to do with the spectral or 'vowelness side' of pitch. (or tone height). It is not uncommon to hear from AP subjects that the words of lyrics interfere with the label of the tones when they have to learn to sing a unknown melody from a score. They have to learn first the melody using their own tone labels and then learn the lyrics on that melody. Long ago I have also performed some reaction time studies on note identification. With me as the only subject. Under pressure I made quite a lot confusion errors between fa and la and between si and mi. So I think that AP subjects use a connection between the chroma and the tone height dimensions of pitch. This is also in line with the conclusion of a researcher in the time of information theory, who calculated that in the identification of tones AP's transmitted a number of bits per symbol corresponding to two dimensions and non-AP's corresponding to only one dimension. I have this only in a manuscript that is somewhere in the stacks I collected during my post-doc at Bell Labs. 1975-1976 Now I think about it I can imagine the reason why subjects 'born with a tone language' develop, according to Diana, much more often AP: as the pitch contour of a word is used to modify the meaning most often transmitted by the 'vowelness side' of pitch they have to establish a stronger link between chroma and tone height. Does this makes sense? Regards, Leon On 31 Aug 2009, at 17:49, Pierre Divenyi wrote: > Dear Eric, Diana, Leon, and other AP fans, > > I have one problem with a basilar membrane interpretation of the AP > shift: > we are talking about chroma, not place and, because the thickness of > the > membrane is not uniform, it is har to believe that an age-related > thickening > would have the same effect (on a roughly logarithmic scale) over the > whole > length. This is why I am more in favor of assigning the (upward) > shift to a > central phenomenon, consistent with a slowing of the internal clock. > Naturally, that would explain neither a downward shift nor a diurnal > change. > However, I am not sure how to interpret any diurnal change since, > ever since > Brady's experiment on learning AP "in 365 trials, one per day, in > order to > eliminate any relational judgment", and as a result of my own > experience > making me able to remember (and unable to rid myself of) a certain > tonality > over several hours, I have a great respect for relative pitch. So, > if there > is long-term memory for relative pitch, it will have to be > considered a > factor in any diurnal AP change. > > -Pierre > > > On 8/31/09 8:12 AM, "Eric LePage" <ericlepage@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> In reply to your message dated 29/08/2009 at 16:18 >> >> Dear Diana, and list, >> >> Thanks for your personal comments. You noted: >> >>> Philip Vernon wrote an entertaining article about his shift of AP >>> with >>> age in the British Journal of Psychology 1977, 68, 485-489. >> >> I found the article in my reprint collection, but inside I found a >> letter >> from Philip Vernon which accompanied the reprint, dated September >> 19, 1978. He would then have been aged 72. Rereading the article >> he specifically suggested how his experience is consistent with a >> change in stiffness of the basilar membrane. >> >> One of his comments to me echoes your own comments about >> variability: >> >> "My own hearing is, I would say, quite normal, apart from some >> natural tendency to deafness with age. But the deviance of my >> pitch norms is quite liable to fluctuate. E.g., at an ordinary >> orchestral >> or chamber concert, I may start off identifying the keys a semitone >> too >> high, and then notice half-an-hour later that everything is a tone >> too >> high; sometimes, of course, I am uncertain of which is predominant. >> But I don't seem to find any fluctuations with health, colds, or >> other >> conditions. (Signed: Philip E Vernon)" >> >> ----- >> So he seems to be suggesting that the same underlying parameter >> varies in the short-term as well as with age. Perhaps the same >> parameter explains the variation of AP with menses (Wynn, 1971) ? >> Andrew Bell (HR1992) also showed that spontaneous OAE >> frequencies also shift with menses, again suggesting a link >> with cochlear mechanical stiffness. Recently I showed a post-hoc >> analysis of CEOAEs suggesting a possible diurnal variation in the >> whole-waveform reproducibility (p<0.01) (Acoustics Australia >> April 2006). David Kemp did a prospective study (reported at >> the 2008 mechanics meeting in Keele) and concluded there was >> a diurnal variation in CEOAEs. Food for thought. >> >> Regards, >> ELeP >> www.oaericle.com.au >>