Use of explicit priming to phenotype absolute pitch ability

Musicians with absolute pitch (AP) can name the pitch of a musical note in isolation. Expression of this unusual ability is thought to be influenced by heritability, early music training and current practice. However, our understanding of factors shaping its expression is hampered by testing and scoring methods that treat AP as dichotomous. These fail to capture the observed variability in pitch-naming accuracy among reported AP possessors. The aim of this study was to trial a novel explicit priming paradigm to explore phenotypic variability of AP. Thirty-five musically experienced individuals (Mage = 29 years, range 18–68; 14 males) with varying AP ability completed a standard AP task and the explicit priming AP task. Results showed: 1) phenotypic variability of AP ability, including high-accuracy AP, heterogeneous intermediate performers, and chance-level performers; 2) intermediate performance profiles that were either reliant on or independent of relative pitch strategies, as identified by the priming task; and 3) the emergence of a bimodal distribution of AP performance when adopting scoring criteria that assign credit to semitone errors. These findings show the importance of methods in studying behavioural traits, and are a key step towards identifying AP phenotypes. Replication of our results in larger samples will further establish the usefulness of this priming paradigm in AP research

Investigating the relationship between childhood music practice and pitch-naming ability in professional musicians and a population-based twin sample

The relationship between pitch-naming ability and childhood onset of music training is well established and thought to reflect both genetic predisposition and music training during a critical period. However, the importance of the amount of practice during this period has not been investigated. In a population sample of twins (N = 1447, 39% male, 367 complete twin pairs) and a sample of 290 professional musicians (51% male), we investigated the role of genes, age of onset of playing music and accumulated childhood practice on pitch-naming ability. A significant correlation between pitch-naming scores for monozygotic (r = .27, p < .001) but not dizygotic twin pairs (r = −.04, p = .63) supported the role of genetic factors. In professional musicians, the amount of practice accumulated between ages 6 and 11 predicted pitch-naming accuracy (p = .025). In twins, age of onset was no longer a significant predictor once practice was considered. Combined, these findings are in line with the notion that pitch-naming ability is associated with both genetic factors and amount of early practice, rather than just age of onset per se. This may reflect a dose–response relation between practice and pitch-naming ability in genetically predisposed individuals. Alternatively, children who excel at pitch-naming may have an increased tendency to practice

Cartoons as alternative accounting: Front-line supply in the First World War

The accounting system that supported the provision of supplies to the Western Front during the First World War had some inadequacies from the perspective of the soldier on the front line. These inadequacies are revealed through the cartoons drawn by Bruce Bairnsfather, a front-line officer in the British Army. Our examination shows that cartoons can provide source material for accounting histories. It also shows that cartoons can be considered as a form of accounting themselves and, in doing so, stretches the epistemological boundaries of accounting

Accuracy profile for a participant (participant 27) with significant target and prime chroma, AP-P task accuracy 42.42%.

Marked target chroma were significantly less likely to be accurately identified than the statistical reference point of C, according to this participant’s logistic regression model. Marked prime chroma were significantly less likely to precede an accurately identified target than targets following C primes (*p p p < .001).</p

Demographic characteristics and music experience of the participants.

Demographic characteristics and music experience of the participants.</p

For Participant 6, E and F were well-represented in the pitch template and may have been used as reference tones for identifying other chroma, as indicated by the significance of these chroma as primes.

F♯ and A♯ were rarely identified accurately as targets regardless of the preceding prime. (TIF)</p

Participant 9 performed relatively well if targets were C, C♯, D, F, G♯ or A, but struggled to identify other target chroma.

C♯ may have been a facilitative prime, but overall this participant did not appear to make use of reference tones. (TIF)</p

Participant 26 also did not appear to make use of primes.

Note that this participant shows a clear white-key preference, with black-key targets more frequently misidentified. Significantly poor target chroma were C♯, D♯ F♯, G♯, and A♯. (TIF)</p

Poor compliance with reporting research results-we know it's a problem..how do we fix it?

No abstract available