Absolute Pitch Education

[sam]

Chris,

First, forgive me if you covered this somewhere in your research. Can reaction time play any role in the development of AP? Is it possible that AP recognition happens faster than RP recognition? If so, would it be possible to design a game where someone would have to answer so fast that RP wouldn't come into play?

Sometimes I mess around with this program called VB midi piano. It plays a bunch of random notes and every time it plays a selected note I have to click that note on the keyboard before the next note is played. I find if I have it set to one second between notes, I find myself trying to hear relationships so I can keep my place harmonically. However, if I set it at 1/2 second between notes, and have it play notes from 7 or 8 octaves, I can't use RP that fast and wide, so I just listen for the note and give up trying to keep my place. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well.

Thanks,
Sam

[aruffo]

Actually, I don't think I've addressed reaction time directly, and since I'm currently brainstorming ways to nullify traditional musical comprehension the timing's right to think of it.

I'm not sure that manipulating reaction time would be helpful, though. What you're describing is a between-category comparison, and for now I intend to focus exclusively on within-category comparisons. I can't off the top of my head recall any exercises for learning letters or colors where a child is prodded to make a snap judgment.

One of my colleagues the other week made the broad and bold assertion that the "first wave of attention assigns meaning." That is, we make an instant judgment of what we think we're perceiving, and only afterward do we take the time to evaluate-- and that, only if we need to.

I was looking at this list of Stroop words and noticing that it's very easy for me to instantly read all the words, out loud, but quite difficult for me to quickly state the colors out loud, except when I squint my eyes so that the words go out of focus and I can't read them. I just dug up a recent paper, too, which suggests that those times I can name colors quickly are those times when the objects I'm looking at are defined by the colors they show.

Which would, in turn, suggest that fast pitch-naming would happen as a natural consequence of learning to define an object by its pitch. Fast naming is possible for object identities, not the characteristics they display, and only once an object has been learned as defined by some characteristic would it be possible to make a quick response identifying that characteristic.

So what would most likely happen if a person were prodded to make a fast response to an object whose characteristic was not definitive? Hm.. my guess is that they would activate whatever characteristic was already definitive, rather than learn a new one. Fast pitch-naming would prompt identification of "that's a pitch", whose definitive characteristic is "height", and that's something we can quickly estimate for a near guess. But it would be a guess, and it would more likely reinforce the existing definitive characteristic, not introduce a new one.

[sam]

Makes sense. Worth a shot.

So what's the next step with AP training? Phase 17 looks pretty exciting. Trying to cause categorical perception?

In my head I see a Legend of Zelda type of game. The character needs to go through the door to fight the boss, but it's locked. What opens up a door? E-flat. The character needs to float across the river. What floats? C-sharp.

Is this what you are aiming at? I really want to understand your theories because I think they show great promise.