LAUSR

Congenital amusia is described as a life-long disorder in melody discrimination, related to poor fine-grained pitch perception. A recent study in our lab found, however, that pitch and melody discrimination in amusia can improve with laboratory training. After training, over half of the amusics no longer met the standard diagnostic criterion for amusia, assessed via the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). The present study examined the durability of learning effects by re-examining frequency difference limens (FDLs) and melody discrimination in the same participants one year after post training. Pure-tone FDLs were measured at 500, 2000, and 8000 Hz using an adaptive three-interval forced-choice procedure, and melody discrimination was assessed via the MBEA. Preliminary results (n = 23; 11 amusics) showed no significant change in FDLs or melody discrimination between post training and one-year follow-up. Consistent with post-training results, there were significant main effects of group, with...