ISBN 88-7395-155-4 © 2006 ICMPC 825 825 Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, August 22-26 2006 Imaging the neurocognitive components of pitch naming: Insights from quasi-absolute pitch Sarah J Wilson Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Melbourne Victoria, Australia sarahw@unimelb.edu.au Dean Lusher Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Melbourne Victoria, Australia Catherine Y Wan Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Melbourne Victoria, Australia Paul Dudgeon Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Melbourne Victoria, Australia David C Reutens Monash Institute for Neurological Diseases, Clayton, Victoria, Australia ABSTRACT 1. Background: Previous research has suggested that pitch naming ability engages two cognitive processes: (1) long- term absolute pitch memory, and (2) conditional associa- tive memory for pitch labelling. Neuroimaging results have linked these processes to activation of right temporofrontal regions for pitch processing, and left posterior dorsolateral frontal cortex for retrieving verbal-pitch associations. 2. Aims: We aimed to directly examine functional activation in musicians with varying degrees of absolute pitch ability during a pitch naming and tonal classification task. 3. Method: Thirty-six highly trained musicians underwent positron emission tomography (PET) following the bolus injection of the blood flow tracer [ 15 O]H 2 O. Three replica- tions of three task conditions were performed: (1) Baseline – listening to pairs of noise bursts and responding with the words ‘C natural’, (2) Pitch naming – listening to an ar- peggiated chord of octaves followed by a tone of the same pitch (target) and responding with its musical note name, and (3) Tonal classification – listening to an arpeggiated dominant chord followed by the tonic or a tone one semi- tone higher and classifying these as ‘tonal’ or ‘atonal’ respectively. High resolution T 1 weighted magnetic reso- nance imaging (MRI) scans were also acquired in all par- ticipants. 4. Results: This paper reports the findings from musicians with quasi-absolute pitch (QAP). In particular, the results showed activation of a right hemisphere net- work during pitch naming that included regions of the right temporal lobe, notably the superior and middle temporal gyri (BA 21), and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46). This appears to reflect encoding of absolute pitch in musical semantic memory and maintenance of pitch in working memory whilst performing the task. 5. Conclu- sions: This is the first study to report functional activation in musicians with QAP. The findings have identified differ- ential components of pitch naming that are underpinned by In: M. Baroni, A. R. Addessi, R. Caterina, M. Costa (2006) Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC9), Bologna/Italy, August 22-26 2006.©2006 The Society for Music Perception & Cognition (SMPC) and European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM). Copyright of the content of an individual paper is held by the primary (first-named) author of that pa- per. All rights reserved. No paper from this proceedings may be repro- duced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or me- chanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the paper's primary author. No other part of this proceedings may be reproduced or transmit- ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from SMPC and ESCOM.