Automatic Brain Responses to Pitch Changes in Congenital Amusia

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder affecting the processing of pitch. This pitch deficit can be traced down to abnormal brain responses elicited by pitch changes smaller than a semitone in conditions requiring attention. Here, we use the mismatch negativity (MMN) to investigate pre-attentive pitch change detection in 10 amusics and eight matched controls. Results indicate similar MMN in amusics and controls, even for an eighth of atone change, revealing that the amusic brain can process small pitch changes at a pre-attentive level. Thus, the pitch deficit in congenital amusia may be related to a problem of perceptual awareness.