Congenital amusia

Congenital Amusia 1 Congenital Amusia: Myths and Realities of Tone Deafness

Individuals with congenital amusia imitate pitches more accurately in singing than in speaking: implications for music and language processing.

In this study, we investigated the impact of congenital amusia, a disorder of musical processing, on speech and song imitation in speakers of a tone language, Mandarin. A group of 13 Mandarin-speaking individuals with congenital amusia and 13 matched controls were recorded while imitating a set of speech and two sets of song stimuli with varying pitch and rhythm patterns. The results indicated ...

Neural Correlates of Amusia in Williams Syndrome

Congenital amusia is defined by marked deficits in pitch perception and production. Though historically examined only in otherwise typically developing (TD) populations, amusia has recently been documented in Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder with a unique auditory phenotype including auditory sensitivities and increased emotional responsiveness to music but variabl...

Memory for pitch in congenital amusia: beyond a fine-grained pitch discrimination problem.

Congenital amusia is a disorder that affects the perception and production of music. While amusia has been associated with deficits in pitch discrimination, several reports suggest that memory deficits also play a role. The present study investigated short-term memory span for pitch-based and verbal information in 14 individuals with amusia and matched controls. Analogous adaptive-tracking proc...

On - Line Identification of Congenital Amusia

RECENTLY, WE POINTED OUT THAT A SMALL number of individuals fail to acquire basic musical abilities, and that these deficiencies might have neuronal and genetic underpinnings. Such a musical disorder is now termed “congenital amusia,” an umbrella term for lifelong musical disabilities that cannot be attributed to mental retardation, deafness, or lack of exposure. Congenital amusia is a conditio...

Congenital amusia: a group study of adults afflicted with a music-specific disorder.

The condition of congenital amusia, commonly known as tone-deafness, has been described for more than a century, but has received little empirical attention. In the present study, a research effort has been made to document in detail the behavioural manifestations of congenital amusia. A group of 11 adults, fitting stringent criteria of musical disabilities, were examined in a series of tests o...