Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

Abstract

Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the rare ability to name the pitch of a tone without external reference. It is widely believed that AP is only for the selected few with rare genetic makeup and early musical training during the critical period. Accordingly, acquiring AP in adulthood is impossible. Previous studies have not offered a strong test of the effect of training because of issues like small sample size and insufficient training. In three experiments, adults learned to name pitches in a computerized and personalized protocol for 12 to 40 hours. They improved considerably, with a continuous distribution of learning progress among them. 14% of the participants (6 out of 43) were able to name twelve pitches at accuracy of 90% or above, comparable to that of AP possessors as defined in the literature. In general, AP learning showed classic characteristics of perceptual learning, including generalization of learning dependent on the training stimuli, and sustained improvement for at least one to three months. Overall, the finding that AP continues to be learnable in adulthood calls for reconsidering the role of learning in the occurrence of AP. The finding also pushes the field to pinpoint and explain, if any, the differences between the aspects of AP more trainable in adulthood and the aspects of AP that are potentially exclusive for the few exceptional AP possessors.