IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0247136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Articulatory motor planning and timbral idiosyncrasies as underlying mechanisms of instrument-specific absolute pitch in expert musicians

Author

Listed:
  • Niels Chr Hansen
  • Lindsey Reymore

Abstract

The study of musical expertise illustrates how intense training in a specialized domain may instigate development of implicit skills. While absolute pitch, or the ability to identify musical pitches without external reference, is rare even in professional musicians and is understood to have a genetic component, anecdotal evidence and pilot data suggest that some musicians without traditional absolute pitch are nonetheless better able to name notes played on their musical instrument of expertise than notes played on less familiar instruments. We have previously termed this particular gain in absolute pitch identification ability “instrument-specific absolute pitch” (ISAP) and have proposed that this skill is related to learned instrument type-specific timbral and intonational idiosyncrasies and articulatory motor planning activated by the timbre of the instrument. In this Registered Report Protocol, we describe two experiments designed to investigate ISAP in professional oboists. Experiment 1 tests for ISAP ability by comparing oboists’ pitch identification accuracies for notes played on the oboe and on the piano. A subset of the participants from Experiment 1 who demonstrate this ability will be recruited for Experiment 2; the purpose of Experiment 2 is to test hypotheses concerning a mechanistic explanation for ISAP. The outcome of these experiments may provide support for the theory that some individuals have ISAP and that the underlying mechanisms of this ability may rely on the perception of subtle timbral/intonational idiosyncrasies and on articulatory motor planning developed through intensive long-term training. In general, this work will contribute to the understanding of specialized expertise, specifically of implicit abilities and biases that are not addressed directly in training, but that may yet develop through practice of a related skill set.

Suggested Citation

  • Niels Chr Hansen & Lindsey Reymore, 2021. "Articulatory motor planning and timbral idiosyncrasies as underlying mechanisms of instrument-specific absolute pitch in expert musicians," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-22, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0247136
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247136
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247136&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0247136?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrícia Vanzella & E Glenn Schellenberg, 2010. "Absolute Pitch: Effects of Timbre on Note-Naming Ability," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-7, November.
    2. Stephen C Van Hedger & Shannon L M Heald & Howard C Nusbaum, 2019. "Absolute pitch can be learned by some adults," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-25, September.
    3. Niels Chr Hansen & Peter Vuust & Marcus Pearce, 2016. ""If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know": Effects of Specialised Stylistic Expertise on Predictive Processing of Music," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, October.
    4. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. JANSSENS, Jochen & DE CORTE, Annelies & SÖRENSEN, Kenneth, 2016. "Water distribution network design optimisation with respect to reliability," Working Papers 2016007, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    2. Teruaki Kido & Yuko Yotsumoto & Masamichi J. Hayashi, 2025. "Hierarchical representations of relative numerical magnitudes in the human frontoparietal cortex," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Raymond Hernandez & Elizabeth A. Pyatak & Cheryl L. P. Vigen & Haomiao Jin & Stefan Schneider & Donna Spruijt-Metz & Shawn C. Roll, 2021. "Understanding Worker Well-Being Relative to High-Workload and Recovery Activities across a Whole Day: Pilot Testing an Ecological Momentary Assessment Technique," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Elisabeth Beckmann & Lukas Olbrich & Joseph Sakshaug, 2024. "Multivariate assessment of interviewer-related errors in a cross-national economic survey (Lukas Olbrich, Elisabeth Beckmann, Joseph W. Sakshaug)," Working Papers 253, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    5. Valentina Krenz & Arjen Alink & Tobias Sommer & Benno Roozendaal & Lars Schwabe, 2023. "Time-dependent memory transformation in hippocampus and neocortex is semantic in nature," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    6. Morán-Ordóñez, Alejandra & Ameztegui, Aitor & De Cáceres, Miquel & de-Miguel, Sergio & Lefèvre, François & Brotons, Lluís & Coll, Lluís, 2020. "Future trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in Mediterranean forests under global change scenarios," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    7. Damian M. Herz & Manuel Bange & Gabriel Gonzalez-Escamilla & Miriam Auer & Keyoumars Ashkan & Petra Fischer & Huiling Tan & Rafal Bogacz & Muthuraman Muthuraman & Sergiu Groppa & Peter Brown, 2022. "Dynamic control of decision and movement speed in the human basal ganglia," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Dongyan Liu & Chongran Zhou & John K. Keesing & Oscar Serrano & Axel Werner & Yin Fang & Yingjun Chen & Pere Masque & Janine Kinloch & Aleksey Sadekov & Yan Du, 2022. "Wildfires enhance phytoplankton production in tropical oceans," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Zhaogeng Yang & Yanhui Li & Peijin Hu & Jun Ma & Yi Song, 2020. "Prevalence of Anemia and its Associated Factors among Chinese 9-, 12-, and 14-Year-Old Children: Results from 2014 Chinese National Survey on Students Constitution and Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-10, February.
    10. Marco Lopez-Cruz & Fernando M. Aguate & Jacob D. Washburn & Natalia Leon & Shawn M. Kaeppler & Dayane Cristina Lima & Ruijuan Tan & Addie Thompson & Laurence Willard Bretonne & Gustavo los Campos, 2023. "Leveraging data from the Genomes-to-Fields Initiative to investigate genotype-by-environment interactions in maize in North America," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Baumann, Elias & Kern, Jana & Lessmann, Stefan, 2019. "Usage Continuance in Software-as-a-Service," IRTG 1792 Discussion Papers 2019-005, Humboldt University of Berlin, International Research Training Group 1792 "High Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series".
    12. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:1:p:201-237 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. C. Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango & Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado & Jhon del Águila-Pasquel & Gerardo Flores Llampazo & Johan de Jong & César J. Córdova Oroche & José M. Reyna Huaymacari & Steve J. Carver & D, 2022. "Sustainable palm fruit harvesting as a pathway to conserve Amazon peatland forests," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(6), pages 479-487, June.
    14. Evans O. Mudibo & Jasper Bogaert & Caroline Tigoi & Moses M. Ngari & Benson O. Singa & Christina L. Lancioni & Abdoulaye Hama Diallo & Emmie Mbale & Ezekiel Mupere & John Mukisa & Johnstone Thitiri & , 2024. "Systemic biological mechanisms underpin poor post-discharge growth among severely wasted children with HIV," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.
    15. Lin-Lin Wang & Zachary Y. Huang & Wen-Fei Dai & Yong-Ping Yang & Yuan-Wen Duan, 2024. "Mixed effects of honey bees on pollination function in the Tibetan alpine grasslands," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    16. Szefer Elena & Lu Donghuan & Nathoo Farouk & Beg Mirza Faisal & Graham Jinko, 2017. "Multivariate association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms in Alzgene linkage regions and structural changes in the brain: discovery, refinement and validation," Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, De Gruyter, vol. 16(5-6), pages 367-386, December.
    17. Julien Collet & Samantha C Patrick & Henri Weimerskirch, 2017. "A comparative analysis of the behavioral response to fishing boats in two albatross species," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 28(5), pages 1337-1347.
    18. Sean Coogan & Zhixian Sui & David Raubenheimer, 2018. "Gluttony and guilt: monthly trends in internet search query data are comparable with national-level energy intake and dieting behavior," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    19. Darcy Steeg Morris & Kimberly F. Sellers, 2022. "A Flexible Mixed Model for Clustered Count Data," Stats, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, January.
    20. Katrijn Delaruelle, 2023. "Migration-related inequalities in loneliness across age groups: a cross-national comparative study in Europe," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, December.
    21. Christos C Ioannou & Luis Arrochela Braga Carvalho & Chessy Budleigh & Graeme D Ruxton, 2023. "Virtual prey with Lévy motion are preferentially attacked by predatory fish," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 34(4), pages 695-699.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0247136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.