Speech mirrors norm-tones: Absolute pitch as a normal but precognitive trait

Abstract

Recent physiological data show a bias in the human auditory system toward the tone frequencies that are dominant in daily music exposure (Braun, 2000). A possible behavioral correlation was examined by analyzing the speech-pitch contours of 2,400 sentences of 15 speakers of Dutch. A bias was found toward the standard frequencies of music according to the international norm A4 = 440 Hz, and it was limited to the dominant tones in daily music exposure, ACDEFG. Further it varied with loudness level and voice register. These results indicate that a precognitive absolute pitch-memory may be a normal trait of the human brain. © 2001 Acoustical Society of America.