The Linked Dual Representation model (Hutchins & Moreno, 2013) was designed to provide an account for the broad pattern of relationships between vocal perception and production, including both correlations and dissociations between the two. This model makes a unique prediction that musicians with absolute pitch (AP) should be biased towards compensating for objectively mistuned notes in a single note imitation task. In this paper, we tested this prediction by asking musicians with and without AP to imitate vocal notes that are either well-tuned or mistuned. We found that AP musicians were more likely to bias their responses to compensate for mistunings, and that this effect was stronger after longer response delays. We also showed evidence for some implicit AP-like abilities among non-AP musicians. Our findings were predicted by the Linked Dual Representation model, but not other models, providing further evidence for this model.

the present study investigated whether music training fosters children's preliteracy skills. Sixty children were randomly assigned to participate in a 20-day training program in either music or visual art. Before and after training, children's phonological awareness and their ability to map visual symbols onto words (i.e., visual-auditory learning) were assessed. Equivalent improvement after training was observed for both groups on the phonological awareness measure, but the children with music training improved significantly more than the art-trained children on the visual-auditory learning measure. Music training appears to benefit certain skills necessary for reading.