No otoacoustic evidence for a peripheral basis underlying absolute pitch
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify or produce the perceived pitch of a sound (e.g., fundamental frequency of a piano note) without an external reference. This ability is relatively rare (~1/10,000 individuals possess it) and the mechanisms underlying AP are not well understood. This study examined whether there was evidence for a peripheral (i.e., cochlear) basis for AP based upon otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). The chief motivations were that both AP and spontaneous emissions (SOAEs) appear to have genetic components and anecdotal observations of prevalence in certain populations (e.g., relatively higher incidence of both in Asians). We examined SOAEs and stimulus-frequency emissions (SFOAEs) in both control (N = 21) and AP (N = 13) normal-hearing populations. We found no substantial differences in SOAE activity between groups (e.g., no evidence for one or more strong SOAEs that could act as a cue). SFOAE phase-gradient delays, measured using several probe levels (20–50 dB SPL), also showed no significant differences. This latter observation argues against sharper frequency selectivity in AP subjects. Taken together, these data support the prevailing view that AP mechanisms arise at a processing level in the central nervous system at the brainstem or higher (e.g., optimized neural coding).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".