Heaton, Pam F.; Hermelin, Beate and Pring, Linda. 1998. Autism and pitch processing: a precursor for savant musical ability? Music Perception, 15(3), pp. 291-305. ISSN 0730-7829 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Musically naive autistic children were compared with musically naive mental age-matched control subjects for their ability to identify and remember single-note frequencies or speech sounds. As an analogy to testing for absolute pitch, subjects were asked after two different time intervals to point out animal pictures previously paired with these stimuli. The results showed that although both groups identified and recalled speech sounds equally well, those with autism demonstrated a superior ability for single-note identification over both time intervals. The findings are discussed in terms of an enhanced capacity, characteristic of autistic persons, to process and retain isolated, context-independent elements of stimulus arrays.

Item Type:	Article
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 1998 Published
Item ID:	5199
Date Deposited:	21 Mar 2011 11:39
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2019 11:48
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/5199

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