Reaching for the high note: judgments of auditory pitch are affected by kinesthetic position.

Reaching for the high note: judgments of auditory pitch are affected by kinesthetic position.
Cogn Process. 2019 Aug 21;:
Authors: Hostetter AB, Dandar CM, Shimko G, Grogan C
Abstract
Auditory pitch is represented on a vertical continuum (e.g., high vs. low). In three experiments, we examined whether the kinesthetic experience of moving in a particular direction (e.g., walking up vs. down stairs; reaching up vs. down) would affect judgments of auditory pitch. Participants listened to three tones twice each, once while moving upward and once while moving downward, and estimated the pitch of each tone. In all experiments, participants' judgments of the tones' pitch were biased in the direction of their movement. Moreover, this effect is not due to visibility of the movement or to using a numerical response method. Our results suggest that kinesthetic information from one's own bodily movements biases pitch estimation, and several possible mechanisms for the effect are discussed.
PMID: 31435748 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Cognitive Processing - August 20, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Hostetter AB, Dandar CM, Shimko G, Grogan C Tags: Cogn Process Source Type: research