Congenital Amusia: A Disorder of Fine-Grained Pitch Discrimination.
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| year | 2002 |
| current status | published |
| journal | Neuron |
| volume | 33 |
| pages | 185-191 |
| reference | Peretz, I., Ayotte, J., Zatorre, R., Mehler, J., Ahad, P., Penhune, V. & Jutras, B. (2002) Congenital Amusia: A Disorder of Fine-Grained Pitch Discrimination. Neuron , vol. 33, pp. 185-191 |
Abstract
We report the first documented case of congenital amusia. This disorder refers to a musical disability that cannot be explained by prior brain lesion, hearing loss, cognitive deficits, socioaffective disturbance, or lack of environmental stimulation. This musical impairment is diagnosed in a middle-aged woman, hereafter referred to as Monica, who lacks most basic musical abilities, including melodic discrimination and recognition, despite normal audiometry and above-average intellectual, memory, and language skills. The results of psychophysical tests show that Monica has severe difficulties with detecting pitch changes. The data suggest that music-processing difficulties may result from problems in fine-grained discrimination of pitch, much in the same way as many language-processing difficulties arise from deficiencies in auditory temporal resolution.
Extras
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Born to be Deaf?
From the NPR radio website. January 16 2002
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