Effect of augmented auditory feedback on pitch production accuracy in singing

Abstract

The effect of augmented (accompanying) auditory feedback on pitch production accuracy during singing is controversial. Yet, the lack of control of vocal range as well as the different criteria of grouping participants into poor and normal pitch singers might have contributed to the contradictory findings reported in the literature. In the present study, 7 poor pitch singers as well as 11 controls who had no formal training of singing were recruited to perform in both a single-note pitch-matching task and a song-singing task. All participants are native speakers of a tonal language. Absolute and relative pitch accuracy were compared between speaker groups for the two tasks. Acoustic analysis was carried out using PRAAT and the stimuli were generated using a music notation software (MUSESCORE) to better control the tempo of presenting the stimuli and the accompaniment. The objective of the current study is to investigate the effect of augmented auditory feedback on pitch accuracy for both poor and good pitch singers and to compare the effect between two types of tasks. Data collection is still in progress, however, available data show that the effect of augmented feedback is positive for the moderately poor pitch singers but not the severely poor ones in the pitch-matching task, but its influence on the performance in the song-singing task is negative.