The Cognitive Process of Musical Pitch by Absoluute-Pitch Listeners

绝对音高(NP)是指在不依靠任何参考音调的情况下识别或产生音高的能力，被认为在各种音乐活动中具有很大的优势。例如，通过使用AP，它的持有者大概能够在脑海中听到以记号表示的音调，并非常准确地发出它们。尽管如此，在儿童早期习得的AP可能会抑制相对音高的充分发展，一些有依赖AP倾向的NP持有者在某些情况下可能无法识别音高关系。本实验就是为了揭示Al？以波兰和日本的音乐专业学生为参与者。受试者听到一个标准旋律在视觉上呈现在记谱上，一个比较旋律在听觉上呈现，并判断这两个旋律是相同还是不同。标准旋律总是用G大调表示，而比较旋律则用G大调、走调的E大调或F#ﾟC大调表示。结果表明，缺乏Al？根据换位对等原则，在每一个关键条件下都表现得同样出色。相比之下，相当多的受试者患有Al？当比较旋律被呈现在调换的关键语境中时，表现出明显的性能下降。这一发现表明，AP听众在识别旋律中的音高关系方面可能存在困难。

Absolute pitch (NP) is referred to as the faculty for identifying or producing musical pitch without recourse to any reference tones, and is believed to be highly advantageous in various musical activities. For example, by using AP, its possessors are presumably able to hear in mind pitches of notes presented in notation and to produce them very accurately. In spite of such advantages, it is suspected that AP acquired in early childhood can inhibit full development of relative pitch, and some NP possessors who have a tendency to rely on AP may fail to recognise pitch relations in certain situations. The present experiment was conducted to reveal such a possible disadvantageous aspect of Al? using music students in Poland and Japan as participants. Subjects heard a standard melody presented visually in notation and a comparison melody presented auditorily and judged whether these two melodies were same or different. The standard melody was always notated in the G major key and the comparison melody was presented in either the G major, out-of-tune E major, or F#ﾟC major key. The results showed that subjects lacking Al? performed equally well in every key condition as expected from the principle of equivalence under transposition. In contrast, a considerable number of subjects with Al? showed a marked decline in performance when the comparison melodies were presented in the transposed key contexts. This finding suggests that AP listeners may have difficulty in recognising pitch relations in melodies.