VIII. Read the article and answer the questions: 1. What is «relative pitch» called? 2. What experiment was made by the US researchers? 3. What was the really interesting finding? 4. What have psychiatrists found out? Music and Memory Some people are able to listen to isolated musical notes and identify them correctly. This rare musical gift is known as «perfect pitch» or «absolute pitch». It is not something that can be learned. Either you have the ability or you haven't. But most people, given the necessary musical training, can acquire what is known as «relative pitch». This is the ability to compare two notes accurately, to name a note by reference to one which has already been played and named. The interesting thing about the difference between these two abilities is that they make use of different brain functions. According to existing evidence, relative pitch is a feature of a highly-trained memory. But people with perfect pitch don't seem to be using memory at all. Instead they seem to have some set of internal «standards» that allows them to name a note without comparing it to anything previously heard. Researchers at the University of Illinois in the USA used this difference to try and identify the parts of the brain used in updating short-term memory. They compared the brain waves of two groups of musicians as they tried to identify a series of computer-generated musical notes. One group had perfect pitch, the other used relative pitch. Each person's brain waves were measured by electrodes placed near the front of the head. The really interesting finding was that what are known as «P300» waves were produced in abundance by the group of musicians without perfect pitch, but scarcely at all by those with perfect pitch. The «P300» wave, then, seems to be an indicator of how much use the brain is making of short-term memory. Scientists had suspected this, but if the only difference between the mental activities of the two groups was whether they were using short-term memory or not, the research appears to confirm it. Psychiatrists now know more about which parts of the brain are associated with short-term memory, but the musical gift of perfect pitch is as much of a mystery as ever.

1. What is "relative pitch" called?

- Relative pitch is called the ability to compare two notes accurately, to name a note by reference to one which has already been played and named.

2. What experiment was made by the US researchers?

- The US researchers at the University of Illinois conducted an experiment to try and identify the parts of the brain used in updating short-term memory. They compared the brain waves of two groups of musicians as they tried to identify a series of computer-generated musical notes. One group had perfect pitch, the other used relative pitch.

3. What was the really interesting finding?

- The really interesting finding was that what are known as "P300" waves were produced in abundance by the group of musicians without perfect pitch, but scarcely at all by those with perfect pitch. The "P300" wave seemed to be an indicator of how much use the brain is making of short-term memory.

4. What have psychiatrists found out?

- The article does not mention any recent findings by psychiatrists.