Abstract:

In spite of the fact that the majority can carry a tune, some individuals show deficits in producing or imitating pitch. During the past decade, the poor-pitch singing domain has produced a large body of literature on the definition, cause and mechanism of poor-pitch singing. To date, there has not been a standard strategy to identify poor-pitch singers, while it is likely to provide thorough information over an individual’s singing proficiency to use the multi-task, multi-measure, and relative criterion approach. Singing involves four major components: perception, sensorimotor integration, vocal motor controlling, and memory. Among them, the deficient sensorimotor integration is thought to be the major cause of poor-pitch singing. The recent MMIA model describes the distorted association between auditory and vocal motor imagery, offering a proposal for how the abstract notion of an internal model over the sensorimotor association is implemented within the auditory-vocal system. Future study should further explore the auditory-vocal motor association by testing and refining the MMIA model, which paves the ground to improve individuals’ pitch singing skills.

Key words: poor-pitch singing, pitch imitation, internal model, MMIA model, amusia