Ashley Davis Period B5 U of U Writing 1010 Erin Rogers

The Connection Between Tonal Language and Absolute Pitch: Nature VS Nurture
Absolute pitch, or more commonly referred to as perfect pitch, is a term for the ability of a person to identify or recreate a given musical note without the benefit of a reference note (Deutsch, D., 2013). Often times, a person with absolute pitch will also be able to name the key of a given piece of music, reproduce a piece of music in the correct key days after hearing it, identify and name all of the tones of a given chord upon hearing such, accurately sing a named pitch, and name the pitches of common every day sounds such as car horns and alarms (Parncutt, R. and Levitin, D. J., 2001). As research shows, the occurrence of absolute pitch is significantly more frequent in societies where a tonal language is spoken, such as multiple communities in China where Mandarin Chinese is spoken. (D. Deutsch, T. Henthorn, and M. Dolson, 1999). There is still much debate is the scientific world on the question whether this unusually high frequency of absolute pitch is a trait determined by nature or whether it is a trait nurtured by learning styles and methods. More likely than not, absolute pitch results from a combination of nature and nurture, shown through multiple scientific studies.

In many languages, particularly in Sino-Tibetan languages, the tone with which a word is said, dictates the meaning of that word. In English there are multiple words that sound the same, but mean different things, such as: too, to, and two. In spoken English, the determinant of the word in use is the context in which it is used. Much like in English, in tonal Sino-Tibetan languages, the determinant of a word depends on the context in which it is used. The context, though, in this case, is the tone with which the word is said. In many Sino-Tibetan languages, there are multiple words that, when phonetically spelled, look exactly the same but mean different things. These words differ from each other in the way that they are spoken. To each word, a tone is assigned which is represented by specific inflections of the voice. Some tones indicate that the readers voice must go up in frequency, while others may indicate that the voice must go down in frequency in order to convey the intended meaning of the word in which the tone was used.

In a study conducted by Diana Deutsch, Trevor Henthorn and Mark Dolson in 1999, seven native speakers of Vietnamese served as subjects in [the experiment]. Each subject was tested individually in two sessions, which were held on different days. In each session, the subject was handed a list of ten Vietnamese words to read out loud... The same list was handed to the subject to read out on both days. The speech samples were recorded and entered into computer memory... From these [recordings] an average pitch was derived... The results showed remarkable consistencies: the data from four of the seven subjects displayed averaged pitch differences of less than .5 semi-tone (D. Deutsch, T. Henthorn, and M. Dolson, 1999).

The study shows an incredible precision in the pitch of the readings, and led the researchers to believe that these tone speakers possessed absolute pitch. The common belief amongst researchers is that this is due to the great importance that tone has in relating the meaning of words. Speaking the same word with two different tones will produce two different meanings (D. Deutsch, T. Henthorn, and M. Dolson, 1999). All tone speakers must have learned this difference in words in order to function within the society in which they were raised. This study has conceived other daughter studies, by the same group of researchers, in a range of various other Sino-Tibetan languages such as: Mandarin Chinese, Minnan, and Cantonese (D. Deutsch, T. Henthorn, and M. Dolson, 2004). All studies modeled after the study conducted in 1999, seemed to support the same underlining conclusions. From a research work published in 2004, the researchers conclude that their studies suggest that the brain circuitry underlying absolute pitch originally evolved to subserve speech, and that it is now involved in processing pitch for both speech and music (D. Deutsch, T. Henthorn, and M. Dolson, 2004). This quote suggests that the presence and use of absolute pitch has changed over the decades. While initially, the suggested origin of absolute pitch was to benefit linguistic interpretation (particularly in regions where Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken), it is suggested that now, absolute pitch is prevalently used in both the linguistic realm as well as the musical realm. The findings described above are indicative of the trait of absolute pitch being one that is developed through nature and evolution. In a study of pitch processing in the brain, conducted by Jack Gandour, Donald Wong, and Gary Hutchins in 1998, a PET (positron emission tomography) scan was used to analyze the brain activity of tonal speakers and non-tonal speakers alike. Their

research paper states that this cross-linguistic comparison provides support for the view that complex auditory processing leading to speech perception undergoes discrete processing stages, each involving separate cortical areas of a distributed neural network (Gandour, J., Wong, D., and Hutchins, G., 1998). This study focused on the processing of sound and pitch, and where in the brain this processing takes place. Whether a pitch is related through language or not, in both cases, that pitch is analyzed in the temporal lobe of the brain. However, when a decision regarding linguistics is necessary, subjects must access Brocas area. This is an area of the brain whose function is to comprehend language (David Caplan, 2006). There is a greater separation between the activity level of Brocas area and the temporal lobe in tonal and non-tonal speakers. When a tonal speaker hears a word is his or her given language, both areas of the brain are active, whereas in a non-tonal speaker, the temporal lobe is significantly less active (Gandour, J., Wong, D., and Hutchins, G., 1998). This shows evidence that the trait of absolute pitch is likely to be a combination of both nature and nurtured origin. Brains are developed within the womb, and as the brain develops, neural pathways are formed. These pathways in pre-natal development can include those relating to pitch. These neural pathways are determined by the developing genetic code, which would point to the origin of nature as far as absolute pitch is concerned. This development is continued, however, up until approximately age 26 (Puitt, Allegrante, Prothrow-Stith, 2007), which shows an argument for the trait of absolute pitch being one that is nurtured as well as being a trait that is acquired through nature.

In 2009, a study was conducted on families in which absolute pitch was a common factor. In this study the researchers performed a genome-wide linkage study on 73 multiplex AP families by genotyping them with 6090 SNP markers. Nonparametric multipoint linkage analyses were conducted, and the strongest evidence for linkage was observed on chromosome 8q24.21 in the subset of 45 families with European ancestry (exponential LOD score = 3.464, empirical genome-wide p = 0.03) (Theusch, E., Basu, A., and Gitschier, J., 2009)

This shows evidence indicating that absolute pitch is genetically tied. The p=0.03 from the above quotation is a statement of statistical significance. This statistic states that there is a 3% chance that the evidence gathered was different from control simply by chance. Which means that there is a 97% chance that the data acquired through experimentation shows that there is definitely weight to the statement that there are specific genes that are linked to absolute pitch. By the basic premise of the study, it can be concluded that there is a genetic factor in play when both a parent and the offspring of that parent both have absolute pitch. The fact that this trait is prevalent in familial clusters suggests that genetics plays a significant role in whether absolute pitch is present. This data would suggest that absolute pitch is not acquired but is a trait determined by nature. More research is needed to support the theory that absolute pitch is determined both through the nature of the genome, and by the nurture of learning language or otherwise. However, preliminary research is suggesting that not only is absolute pitch genetically tied, but is also a trait acquired through the post-natal development of neural pathways. While the documentation of acquired absolute pitch in adulthood is less than accessible, it does seem to be possible in theory.