Department of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, C 91711A, USA.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2011 Jul;28(5):305-21. doi: 10.1080/02643294.2011.646972. Epub 2012 Jan 17.
This study investigates whether congenital amusia (an inability to perceive music from birth) also impairs the perception of musical qualities that do not rely on fine-grained pitch discrimination. We established that G.G. (64-year-old male, age-typical hearing) met the criteria of congenital amusia and demonstrated music-specific deficits (e.g., language processing, intonation, prosody, fine-grained pitch processing, pitch discrimination, identification of discrepant tones and direction of pitch for tones in a series, pitch discrimination within scale segments, predictability of tone sequences, recognition versus knowing memory for melodies, and short-term memory for melodies). Next, we conducted tests of tonal fusion, harmonic complexity, and affect perception: recognizing timbre, assessing consonance and dissonance, and recognizing musical affect from harmony. G.G. displayed relatively unimpaired perception and production of environmental sounds, prosody, and emotion conveyed by speech compared with impaired fine-grained pitch perception, tonal sequence discrimination, and melody recognition. Importantly, G.G. could not perform tests of tonal fusion that do not rely on pitch discrimination: He could not distinguish concurrent notes, timbre, consonance/dissonance, simultaneous notes, and musical affect. Results indicate at least three distinct problems-one with pitch discrimination, one with harmonic simultaneity, and one with musical affect-and each has distinct consequences for music perception.
本研究旨在探讨先天性失乐症（一种自出生起就无法感知音乐的能力）是否也会影响到那些不依赖于精细音高辨别能力的音乐感知。我们确定 G.G.（64 岁男性，年龄正常听力）符合先天性失乐症的标准，并表现出与音乐相关的特定缺陷（例如语言处理、语调、韵律、精细音高处理、音高辨别、不和谐音和音程中音调的方向辨别、音阶内音高辨别、音调序列的可预测性、旋律的识别与知晓记忆以及旋律的短期记忆）。接下来，我们进行了音融合、和声复杂度和情感感知测试：识别音色、评估和谐与不和谐以及从和声中识别音乐情感。与精细音高感知、音调序列辨别和旋律识别受损相比，G.G.对环境声音、韵律和言语所传达的情感的感知和产生相对未受影响。重要的是，G.G.无法进行不依赖于音高辨别能力的音融合测试：他无法区分同时发出的音符、音色、和谐与不和谐、同时发出的音符以及音乐情感。结果表明，至少存在三个不同的问题——一个与音高辨别有关，一个与和声同时性有关，一个与音乐情感有关——每个问题都对音乐感知有独特的影响。
