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"Assessing the capacities of the self-defined tone-deaf : Deconstructing a myth". John Sloboda and Karen Wise (Centre for Psychology Research: Research Institute of Life Course Studies) [email protected] [email protected]. Acknowledgments. Funding from the British Academy - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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"Assessing the capacities of the self-defined tone-deaf:
Deconstructing a myth" John Sloboda and Karen Wise (Centre for Psychology Research:Research Institute of Life Course Studies)
[email protected]@psy.keele.ac.uk
Acknowledgments
Funding from
the British Academy
The Leverhulme Trust
The Nuffield Foundation
Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research
Context
Long-term Keele-based work on understanding individual differences in musical skill
Motivation:
- Scientific explanation of musical variation
- Seeking underlying commonalities
- Rescuing extremes from the status of “freaks”
Work at Keele
Phenomena studied
- Musical savants (low IQ individuals with high musical skills) With Neil O’Connor and Beate Hermelin (1980s)
- Exceptionally skilled young musicians (the musically “gifted”) With Michael Howe, Jane Davidson, and Derek Moore (1990s)
- People who have, or believe themselves to have, musical deficits (the “tone deaf” or “amusics”) With Isabelle Peretz and Karen Wise, and support from Lauren Stewart (Goldsmiths University) - ongoing
Influences on skill acquisition
Determinants of high ability include cognitive, social, and motivational variables
Key examples COGNITIVE Practice – strong relationship between
amount of relevant cognitive effort and achievement SOCIAL Adult support behaviour – strong
relationship between nature and amount of parental support and achievement
PRACTICE
Grade
Mean number of hours of practice0200400600800
1000120014001600180020002200240026002800300032003400
P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Cumulated hoursfrom previousgradeTotal cumulatedhours
Motivational variables
MOTIVATIONAL Mastery-orientation, belief in self as “talented” – strong relationship between self-beliefs and persistence on difficult tasks
BUT Lay beliefs about causes of high achievement include the
postulation of rare “innate talent”, the lack of which is held to explain low achievement.
Large numbers in western society consider themselves “unmusical”, have objectively low achievement, and have “given up” on aspirations to musical skill acquisition
Developmental considerations
Yet perceptual and cognitive studies of babies suggest sophisticated inborn mechanisms for processing musical sounds, with few individual differences.
Therefore, a parsimonious assumption is that lack of achievement is not generally due to a lack of cognitive capacity.
Are there people who really do lack essential cognitive capacities? The “tone deaf”?
If so, is it possible to screen for “tone deafness”, thereby proving to the “not tone deaf” that they have the requisite capacity, and could this proof re-motivate them to engage in musical skill acquisition activities?
Current research programme
Develop a comprehensive assessment battery capable of differentiating among different types of musical “under-performance”
Through this battery begin to more precisely map out (and offer functional accounts of) different patterns of deficit in the general population
Most specifically, use the battery to investigate differences between identified “congenital amusics” (Peretz et al), self-defined “tone-deaf” adults, and adult controls.
“Congenital amusia” (Ayotte, Peretz & Hyde, 2002)
Peretz et al – Montreal sample Allegedly emerges in early life and persists in adulthood Normal perception and cognition otherwise Dense Impairments in melodic discrimination and recognition,
musical memory, metric discrimination, singing, and tapping with the beat
May affect 4% of population (Kalmus & Fry, 1980) Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) reliably
distinguishes amusics from others. Amusics perform at chance, normals perform well.
This is a purely perceptual test, requires no musical performance
Are tone deafness and amusia the same things?
17% of university undergraduates self-define as tone deaf, but most score in the normal range on the MBEA (Cuddy, 2005)
So: – Either they do not have difficulties but believe they
do– Or they have difficulties not detected by the MBEA– Understanding and assisting this large sub-
population requires differentiating between these possibilities
Concepts of ‘tone deafness’
No scientific definition. Lay term.
Interviews have revealed: Tone deafness is generally associated with a (perceived)
inability to sing Tone deafness is not just an extreme form of unmusicality: a
person can be both musical and tone-deaf Comparative judgements of singing performance are at the
centre of many self-assessments
(Sloboda, Wise & Peretz, Annals of NY Academy of Sciences 2005)
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Possible deficit patterns: and hypothesised functional causes
TASKS
FUNCTIONALLOCATIONSOF MUSICALDEFICITS
MBEA PITCHDIR
BASIC VOCALTASKS
SINGING NONVOCALPITCHMATCH
SELFASSESS
Perception X X A X X ?
Memory X X A X A ?
Production A A X X A ?
FalseAttribution
A A A A A X
‘X’ = poor performance relative to published norms or controls ‘A’ = average or above average performance relative to published norms or controls
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA)
Six existing normed subtests: Melodic discrimination: Scale
IntervalContour
Temporal discrimination: MetreRhythm
Musical memory: Recognition
Same pool of 30 melodies for each testSame-different judgement on 2 sequences
MBEA – scale test example
Sound example
MBEA results
Mean scores: STD = 81.04, NTD = 85.58
distribution of scores on MBEA for 3 groups(reprinted from Wise & Sloboda (2008) Musicae Scientiae )
0
10
20
30
40
50
50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90score on test (max 100)
%CASTDNTD
Adding new sub-tests to the MBEA
(a) emotional perception (b) harmony perception
Using same melody pool and same task (same-different judgement)
Emotion sub-test
Professional performers can effectively communicate basic emotions (happy-sad) through performance variation (Juslin 1997)
Professional violinist recorded each tune in 4 ways:
happy very happy sad very sad
Emotion judgement
Are the two performances communicating the same emotion or different emotions?
Sound example Sound example
MBEA scores –old and new tests
50
60
70
80
90
100
ScaleContourIntervalRhythm
MetreMemoryEmotionHarmony
AmusicControl
Real ability or artifact?
It may be that Amusics are capable of processing and appropriately categorising at least one aspect of musical sequences where this does not depend on fine pitch discrimination
But they may be making judgement on non-musical bases (e.g. long vs short duration of stimulus)
Current redesign of test to make all stimuli the same duration.
Harmony sub-test
Three harmonisations for each melody(a) Conventional (diatonic chords from key of melody leading to perfect or plagal cadence)
Standard harmonisation
Alternate harmonisations (last 2 chords only)
(b) Mildly unconventional (using chords from the key, but avoiding plagal and perfect cadence)
(c) Highly unconventional (using chords from outside the key)
Harmony judgement
Are the two sequences the same or different? “Same” examples repeated the conventional
harmonisation twice “Different” examples paired a conventional
with an unconventional harmonisation.
MBEA normals versus amusics
50
60
70
80
90
100
ScaleContourIntervalRhythm
MetreMemoryEmotionHarmony
AmusicControl
Harmony test
Sub-group performance
All groups significantly different from one another (STD range = 13 – 18)
02468
101214161820
amusics STD NTD
CASTDNTD
Purpose of enhanced MBEA
wider range of abilities tested
increased potential for differentiating population sub-groups
MBEA overview
Congenital amusics generally perform poorly on a harmonic same-different task (as poorly as other pitch-based tasks)
Congenital amusics generally perform like normals on an emotion same-different task (and at ceiling).
People who self-define as tone-deaf have MBEA scores close to (but still significantly lower than) normals. They do not share the same deficit profile as congenital amusics.
Deeper understanding of the nature of these deficits will require tests of production and self-ratings on specific tasks.
Recent data from Amusics
New data, as yet incomplete Impossible to give more than a flavour – most
quantitative results from here on don’t include CAs Key observation is that CAs are not a homogeneous
group. Some perfomed above chance on some of our new tasks, some did very badly.
Raises possibility of a) several separable deficits and b) different deficits underlying the ‘typical’ amusic behaviour profile
Is congenital amusia really (just) a pitch perception deficit?
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Pitch direction judgement
Participants judge ‘up’ ‘down’ or ‘same’ for pairs of piano tones
Ceiling effect Some amusics do well Different patterns of
low scores– Difficulty spotting
changes– Difficulty
identifying direction of changes 0
102030405060708090
% of participants
13-14 15-16 17-18 19-20 21-22 23-24
Test score (max 24)
Distribution of scores on pitch direction judgment
AmusicTone deafControl
050
100
1st
Qt
r
East
West
Nor th
Non-vocal pitch-matching
Computer task involving adjusting one movable tone to match a fixed tone
Boxplot shows mean deviation in cents from the target
Difference between TD and NTD groups only significant with outliers removed
Amusics much worse than any other group – most accurate performance was on average nearly a semitone off-target.
tone deaf not tone deafamusic control for amusicgroup
0
100
200
300
400
42
26
20
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Basic vocal control & range (1)
Objectives: To test the theory that poor singing is linked to a
restricted singing pitch range To establish possible underlying causes of a
restricted range, in particular to rule out low-level physiological problems
Taking several different measures of vocal pitch range allows these distinctions to be made
Basic vocal control & range (2)
Essential vocal skills for singing:– Pitch change and pitch sustaining– Extent of conscious control
Tasks– Speech contours– Speech-to-singing– Up & down– Sung range– Slides
Basic vocal control & range (3)
05
1015202530
semitones
Speech Slides Sungrange
Amusic (N=12)Control (N=7)
Self defined ‘tone deaf’ group have a reduced vocal range overall, but especially in singing
No sig. overall difference between amusics and controls
Polarised singing behaviour in amusic group
– Most have wide range
– One had a range of less than 3, and the other two did not sustain pitches
05
1015202530
semitones
Speech Slides Sungrange
'Tone deaf'(N=13)'Not tone deaf'(N=17)
Alternative way of showing vocal range data
tone deafnot tone deafamusicmature control
Slides Speech SingingTask
5
10
15
20
25
30
Range in semitones
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
106
4
4
10
116
6
13
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Matching pitches and short patterns
Battery consists of:– 6 x single pitches– 4 x 2-note patterns– 4 x 3-note patterns– 4 x 5-note patterns
All in same key, within comfortable untrained singing range, and composed to make musical sense
Sung by a model of participant’s own gender to neutral syllable ‘na’
2 conditions (counterbalanced, within participants)– Echo– Synchronised
Pitch/pattern matching analysis
Fundamental frequency calculated for each note
Accuracy = mean difference between model pitches and participant’s sung pitches, in cents (100 cents = 1 semitone)
Absolute values were used to avoid –ve and +ve differences cancelling each other out
Pitch/pattern matching results
Mean cents deviation: Echo Mean cents deviation: Sync
Main effect of length: F(3,81)=36.32, p<.001; Group*length interaction: F(3,81)=5.90, p=.001; Group*condition interaction: F(1,27)= 5.77, p=.023; Condition*length interaction: F(3,81)=4.70, p=.004
(Reprinted from Wise & Sloboda (2007) Musicae Scientiae)
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 2 3 5
TonedeafNot tonedeaf
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 2 3 5
Singing: Songs
Own choice song (not CAs)
Happy Birthday: - Twice unaccompanied at participant’s own choice of pitch
- Twice accompanied, once at participant’s comfortable pitch, then either a tone higher or lower (except CAs, who only sang unaccompanied)
Performances rated blind by two independent judges, and self-rated by participants during the session.
Expert accuracy rating scale 8. All melody is accurate and in tune, and key is maintained throughout.
7. Key is maintained throughout, and melody accurately represented, but some mistunings (though not enough to alter the pitch-class of the note)
6. Key is maintained throughout and melody mostly accurately represented, but some errors (notes mistuned sufficiently to be ‘wrong’)
5. Melody largely accurate, but singer’s key drifts or wanders. This may be the result of a mistuned interval, from which the singer then continues with more accurate intervals but without returning to the original pitch.
4. Melody fairly accurate, or mostly accurate within individual phrases, but singer changes key abruptly, especially between phrases (e.g. adjusting higher-lying phrases down).
3. Singer accurately represents the contour of the melody but without consistent pitch accuracy or key stability.
2. Words are correct but pitches sound random, and there are errors in contour.
1. Singer sings with little variation in pitch, and may chant in speaking voice rather than singing.
Results: ‘Happy Birthday’ accuracy scores Inter-rater agreement of above 80% (Reprinted from Wise & Sloboda (2007) Musicae Scientiae)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Unaccomp Accomp
Tone deafNot tone deaf
Singing performance and vocal range (1)
Accuracy of Happy Birthday performance correlates with sung range measure to a great extent; to a lesser extent with speech range measure
But speech and sung ranges do not correlate with each other
correlations Speech range
Sung range
HB accomp.
.433p=.008
.702p<.001
HB unaccomp.
.358p=.026
.630p<.001
Singing performance and vocal range (2)
Despite having the underlying vocal capacity to produce a wider pitch range, the STD group don’t do so in singing – but why?
Sustaining pitches is more vocally strenuous than the gliding pitches typical of speech. Higher vocal registers require a different larynx muscle co-ordination to typical speech register.
But Davidson (1994) suggests that restricting one’s singing range is necessary in the process of developing tonal knowledge
So there may be two possibilities:– Less accurate singers have poorer voice function/skills – Less accurate singers have less stable/accurate tonal representations
Differential predictions
Prediction 1: A low-level motor productive deficit should show in a difficulty performing singing-relevant pitch control tasks outside a musical context, i.e. systematic movement of pitch and sustaining of pitch in non-musical vocal tasks.
.
Prediction 2: A difficulty with the planning of muscular co-ordinations for pitch control would be evidenced by
a) greater inaccuracy in the very beginning of vocalisation of a new note and b) less efficient transitions between notes.
.
Prediction 3: A difficulty with sensorimotor integration or with the schematic mappings of sensory and motor representations would be evidenced by poor correction of pitching errors after feedback.
Assessing vocal motor planning and sensory-motor co-ordination
Accuracy of vocal motor planning can be seen at the onset of voicing before sensory feedback can be used
After about 150ms, auditory and proprioceptive feedback can be used to monitor discrepancies between expected and actual outcomes
The relationship between pitch onset and the steady state portion of each sung pitch can therefore provide a window into participants’ ability to coordinate their sensory and motor functions
Box plot of correlation co-efficients between fundamental frequency errors at consonant release and subsequent corrections
tone deaf not tone deafGroup
-0.25
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
Correlation co-efficient
P. 6, most accurate singer in Vocal Imitation task (NTD)
_ Consonant release - target_ Steady state - target
5a note 15a note 2
5a note 35a note 4
5a note 55b note 1
5b note 25b note 3
5b note 45b note 5
5c note 15c note 2
5c note 35c note 4
5c note 5
Note s
-1000
-500
0
500
Cents deviation from target
_
__
__
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_ __
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
_ _ _ _ _ _
P. 8, Singer with biggest errors at note onsets (accurate in steady state) (NTD)
_ Consonant release - target_ Steady state - target
5a note 15a note 2
5a note 35a note 4
5a note 55b note 1
5b note 25b note 3
5b note 45b note 5
5c note 15c note 2
5c note 35c note 4
5c note 5
Notes
-1000
-500
0
500
Cents deviation from target
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
__ _
__
_
_ __ _
_ _ __
_
_
P.213, Least accurate singer in steady states – the TD outlier. Showing apparent absence of error correction.
_ Consonant release - target_ Steady state - target
5a note 15a note 2
5a note 35a note 4
5a note 55b note 1
5b note 25b note 3
5b note 45b note 5
5c note 15c note 2
5c note 35c note 4
5c note 5
Notes
-1000
-500
0
500
Cents deviation from target
__
__
_
_
_
__
_
__ _
_ _
_
_
_
__
_
_
__
_
_
__
_
_
P. 203, second least accurate singer in steady states making erratic corrections (TD)
_ Consonant release - target_ Steady state - target
5a note 15a note 2
5a note 35a note 4
5a note 55b note 1
5b note 25b note 3
5b note 45b note 5
5c note 15c note 2
5c note 35c note 4
5c note 5
Notes
-1000
-500
0
500
Cents deviation from target
_
_
_
_ _
_
__
_
_
_
_
_
__
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
__
_
_
_
_
P 214, Inaccurate singer showing correction mostly in the right direction but insufficient (TD)
_ Consonant release - target_ Steady state - target
5a note 15a note 2
5a note 35a note 4
5a note 55b note 1
5b note 25b note 3
5b note 45b note 5
5c note 15c note 2
5c note 35c note 4
5c note 5
Notes
-1000
-500
0
500
Cents deviation from target
_
_
_
_
_
_
__
_
_
_
_ _
_
__
_
_
_
_
__
_
_ _
_
_ _
_
_
Groups and measures: overview
Groups: Self-defined ‘Tone Deaf ‘(STD) (N=13) Keele Self-defined ‘Not Tone Deaf ‘(NTD) (N=17) Keele
‘Congenital Amusics’ (CA) (N = 12) Montreal/LondonMeasures: PERCEPTION MBEA; New MBEA sub-tests pitch direction judgement: Non-vocal pitch matching (computer) PRODUCTION Basic vocal control & range (speech & singing) Singing (matching pitches and short patterns; songs) SELF REPORT self-assessment of performance; background questionnaire
Song self-rating scales
On a scale of 1-7: How accurately do you think you sang the tune? (By accurate I
mean whether you think you got the notes right). (Very inaccurately-very accurately)
To what extent did you feel in control of the quality of the sound that you were able to produce? (Not at all-completely)
How did you think you did compared to how an average person of your age would do on the task? (Much better-much worse, reverse scored)
Results: ‘Happy Birthday’ self-ratings
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Accuracy-unaccompAccuracy-accompQual-unaccomp
Qual-accompPerf-unaccompPerf-accomp
Tone deafNot tone deaf
(Reprinted from Wise & Sloboda (2007) Musicae Scientiae)
Results: Self-ratings vs judges’ accuracy scores
Overall correlation between self and judges’ ratings for accuracy is about 0.4 (significant) for both accompanied and unaccompanied Happy Birthdays.
And:
TD group do not self-rate significantly lower than NTD for accuracy when their actual accuracy is controlled for
Other self report data
012345
up & downown song
Happy accomp.Happy unaccomp.
Pitch echoPitch sync
Graph of voice quality self ratings for 6 tasks
Tone deafNot tone deaf
Conclusions
Self-defined tone deaf Perform slightly worse in MBEA and other tasks than
normals Are likely to improve with intervention Rate themselves lower than normals, but only as
much as their actual performance merits Are less confident than normals about their voice
quality Performance is highly variable within the group and
within individuals.
Conclusions
Congenital amusics As a group are severely impaired on many tasks compared to
controls But are not a homogeneous group The range of abilities and behaviours suggests the possibility of
multiple underlying deficits, which may be present singly or in combination e.g. pitch perception, pitch memory and production.
Musical skill emerges as multi-faceted. Even people with apparently severe impairments can show skills in appropriate tasks
Where next
Try to identify patterns of test performance which differentiate within the CA and STD groups, looking across all tests. Are there clusters characterising “syndromes”?
Cognitive and motivational implications for the self-defined “tone deaf” and “untalented”
Research implications
Full understanding of musical capacities requires a range of perceptual and productive tasks
Suitable productive tests can be used effectively with the musically untrained
Practical Implications
Interaction between capacity and achievement is complex
Many people believe themselves to have reached genetically-determined limits on their musical achievement
In the vast majority of cases these self-beliefs are mistaken
In such cases, musical expertise is available, with the right circumstances, motivation, and activity.