Auditory statistical learning in classical and jazz musicians
Knowles, E. R., Larrea, M., & Odabashian, S. (2022). Auditory statistical learning in classical and jazz musicians. Poster presented at the 2022 Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC) Conference.
ABSTRACT Auditory learning is a key component of musicianship, and this ability is shaped over the course of music training. While research has demonstrated that previous experience can shape perception and therefore acquisition, the role of established pitch representations on auditory learning has not been considered. Absolute pitch (AP), colloquially known as perfect pitch, is the ability to name the chroma (pitch class) of an isolated tone or produce the pitch of a specified note in the absence of an external reference. This ability contrasts with relative pitch (RP) in which pitch-processing is based upon relationships between tones. The current research sought to investigate the impact of established pitch representations on auditory learning using a well-established auditory statistical learning paradigm across two tuning conditions. One condition was congruent with established pitch representations (i.e., Western tuning) and the second condition was incongruent with prior training experience (i.e., Bohlen-Pierce tuning). AP ability conferred an advantage when the tuning system was congruent with the learned associations. AP musicians significantly outperformed their RP musician peers in the Western tuning condition. However, in the incongruent condition, AP musicians no longer showed an advantage and performed on par with the RP musicians. Overall, our results demonstrate that while previously established pitch representations can impact the ability to learn from the auditory environment, there is some flexibility to the strategies used during acquisition.
Impact of absolute pitch on auditory learning
ABSTRACT The ability that music has to give us pleasure and to manipulate our emotions stems from the creation and violation of our expectations of what will come next. Humans acquire the knowledge of the structural rules of music through passive exposure and have been found to be sensitive to these rules. This processing can be further shaped through musical training. Previous research has demonstrated that musicians as a group are better able to learn the structural rules of a new musical system than non-musicians. However, to lump musicians into a single group masks the large variation in pedagogy and performance demands. The current study was interested in the impact different types of musical training may have on the ability to learn from the auditory environment. Specifically, the current study considered musicians who have received either classical or jazz training. A total of 20 jazz students and 20 classical music students were recruited from Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Participants completed a statistical learning task that was adapted from Mandikal Vasuki and colleagues (2016) and was based on a classical statistical learning task developed by Saffran (1999). Overall, both groups were above chance for their test performance indicating that they were able to learn the structural regularities embedded in the auditory stream. When considering musical training, it was found that jazz musicians performed significantly better than classical musicians at test. These results suggest that differences in practice strategies, listening skills, and performance demands between the genres of classical and jazz music may impact auditory learning and provide further evidence that types of musical training may have differential impacts on the system’s ability to process and learn from the auditory environment.