Music & Language Studies

Plantinga, Judy & Laurel J. Trainor. “Memory for melody: infants use a relative pitch code,” Cognition 98 (2005): 1-11.

Plantinga & Trainor begin by noting that while most other animals rely upon absolute pitch data, humans tend to prefer relative pitch. While absolute pitch has often been considered a coveted ability, the authors observe that

focusing on absolute pitch information may be a musical hindrance. (2)

This matter goes beyond music however, as relative pitch reflects a more general ability of humans to approximate, to identify similarities from a mass of real-world instances, in ways that likely go beyond the abilities of other animals. As they put it:

the ability to encode relative pitch and perceive melodic invariance across pitch transposition is a more sophisticated ability than remembering absolute pitch. (2)

They point out the tonotopic organization of pitch physiologically, and indicate that relative pitch processing is therefore a cognitive task, following initial processing of the acoustic information. They cite Heaton, Hermelin, & Pring (1998) and Brown et al., (2003) in discussing correlations between absolute pitch processing and autism

suggesting that absolute pitch processing is associated with a particular cognitive style. (3)

They indicate the suggestion by others

that early in life all infants rely mainly on absolute pitch, but that with increasing age and experience most shift to processing relative pitch (Sergeant & Roche, 197; Takeuchi & Hulse, 1993). (3)

Yet, they challenge this notion, stating:

there are little data to suggest a transition from absolute to relative pitch processing. (3)

The remainder of the article sets out details of two experiments conducted to test this, concluding:

The results of this study suggest that by 6 months of age infants, like adults, store melodic information primarily according to a relative and not an absolute pitch code in long-term memory. … The possibility that infants also remember absolute pitch of a familiar melody cannot be ruled out, but the present results argue against robust absolute pitch memory. (8)

Yet, they concede:

It is still possible that there is a developmental shift from predominantly absolute pitch processing to predominantly relative pitch processing that takes place before 6 months of age. (9)

References

Brown, W. A., et al. (2003). “Autism-related language, personality, and cognition in people with absolute pitch: Results of a preliminary study,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 33, 163-167.

Heaton, P., B. Hermelin, and L. Pring. (1998). “Autism and pitch processing: A precursor for savant musical ability,” Music Perception 15, 291-205.

Sergeant, D. and S. Roche. (1973). “Perceptual shifts in the auditory information processing of young children,” Perception of Music 1, 39-48.

Takeuchi, A. H. and S. H. Hulse. (1993). “Absolute pitch,” Psychological Bulletin 113, 345-361.