A Comparison of Pitch Identification in Auditory Imagery and Perception Tasks

Individuals possessing absolute pitch (AP) are not only capable of identifying tones without a reference sound, but can also internally generate or imagine tones of a speci!c pitch. Research suggesting that auditory perception and mental imagery involve common neural resources [1] raises the question whether perception and imagery abilities are correlated in AP musicians. If AP perception and imagery are correlated, how close is the correspondence? Preferential e"ects for certain pitch registers (central rather than extreme) and key categories (white rather than black piano keys) have been observed in perception [3, 4, 5]. Does such selectivity also characterize imagery?