The Effect of Silence on Musician’s Pitch Discrimination Accuracy

The complex abilities of pitch perception and perceiving discriminating pitches are vital to the music perception phenomenon. Comprehensive studies have investigated the influence of intervening silence in various dimensions and have indicated its effect on human auditory ability. The present study provides additional information on the pitch discrimination ability, and how silence between stimuli affects our perception. We neutralized various effective factors and assessed the effect of perceivable durations of silences (in the range of 500-2000 ms) on pitch discrimination ability in musicians; Distractive factors were reduced to refine the effect of intervening silence, and assess pitch discrimination accuracy in varying silent inter-stimulus interval durations precisely. By using factors such as pure stimuli, moderate frequencies, suitable durations, and favorable intensities, the efficiency of the experiment was optimized. Varying degrees of pitch differentials (5, 10, 25, and 50 cents) were used to estimate the effect of silence on pitch discrimination. In current experiment, participants included 36 female and 65 male undergraduate and graduate music students from Tehran University of Art and the University of Tehran (mean age=23.31 years, SD=4.46). They had passed ear-training courses, and played a melodic instrument for a minimum mean (SD) time of 9.15 (3.42) years. The difference limen for frequency was estimated for all participants (mean± SD= 8.2±2.88 cents). Since the results of multiple test attempts on one person should be considered related or dependent, Friedman test was used to compare the answers of each participant across different silent ISI durations. Moreover, Fisher’s exact test was used to correct all analyses. To assess the influence of auditory sensitivity and musical experience in our experiment, and to find any correlation between these factors and the effect of silence intervention, participants were categorized into two groups: one based on their baseline mean DLF (8.2≤ and >8.2) and another based on the mean years of their musical instruction (≥ 9.15 years or