Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S4 · Q20 Neuroscientists subjected volunteers

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Neuroscientists subjected volunteers with amusia­ — difficulty telling different melodies apart and remembering simple tunes — to shifts in pitch comparable to those that occur when someone plays one piano key and then another.

Statements

Amusia means .

In an experiment, they played some shifting pitches to people with amusia (the part about piano is just establishing that these pitches are discernibly different -- people w/o amusia can easily hear the difference when someone switches from playing middle C to playing the D key right next to it).

The amusia folk could not tell the difference in pitches/tones.

But ... they could track the timing of tones and notice differences in timing.

Evaluate

This seems like a Reconcile the Pivot type setup. We get all this information about people who can't tell the difference between melodies, can't remember simple tunes, can't hear a difference between different tones .... BUT ... they can tell the difference between different timing.

Goal

It's hard to anticipate how a correct answer here will sound, but it will likely reconcile the fact that people with amusia can detect timing changes with the fact that they can't detect pitch/melody changes.

20.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following hypotheses?

  1. People who are unable to

    Too Strong: heightened perception

    These people with amusia might just have normal perception of timing. They have abnormal perception of pitch (they don't hear differences that the rest of us hear). But this paragraph doesn't say that people with amusia are able to hear differences in timing that the rest of us don't hear, so there's no reason to think they have a heightened perception of timing.

    16% picked this

  2. Correct

    Amusia results more from an

    Why this is right

    To understand this answer, we would first want to re-read the definition of amusia: difficulty telling different melodies apart / remembering simple tunes What causes this? If you were to hum a melody / a simple tune (like the "Happy Birthday" song), you would be making different pitches in a certain rhythm. A melody is a combination of pitch and timing. Since these facts established that people with amusia can't tell different pitches apart but can tell different timed sequences apart, they it's supportable to say what's stopping them from being able to hear and remember melodies is pitch, not rhythm. What confused me a lot in processing this answer was that I thought of amusia as an underlying condition that causes people to not be able discern pitch, whereas this answer is saying it in reverse (being unable to discern pitch is what causes amusia). For example, Crohn's Disease causes a lot of digestive discomfort. We wouldn't say that digestive discomfort causes Crohn's Disease. But apparently amusia is a name for the symptom, not a name for the underlying cause. I had to think about other words that end with that same suffix to realize that these are all conditions, not causes: - aphasia - amusia - amnesia - dementia - pneumonia All these conditions are caused by more than one thing. Aphasia (inability to express your thoughts) or dementia (confused thoughts) could be caused by a stroke or by Alzheimer's. Pneumonia (cloudy lungs) could be caused by a bacterial infection or by COVID. ... and so forth So if you think about "amusia" as a condition that results from something, this answer makes a lot more sense.

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    58% picked this

  3. People who are unable to

    Contradicted

    We were told that these people with amusia cannot tell melodies apart. This answer is saying, "Well ... sure they can; they just focus on timing". No. They can tell one timed sequence apart from another, but they can't tell melodies apart, as we were told.

    15% picked this

  4. The ability to tell melodies

    Too Strong: alone / not at all

    We can definitely infer that "the ability to tell melodies apart depends at least in part on the discernment of pitch", but we have no way to say that it depends entirely on pitch. It's possible it depends on pitch and timing, and since people with amusia can't hear pitch, they can't tell melodies apart.

    7% picked this

  5. Whereas perception of timing can

    Out of Scope: learned / innate

    Nothing in this paragraph would allow us to speculate that people with amusia learned to detect differences in timing. We have just as much reason to think that they have an innate capacity to hear different timed sequences but don't have an innate capacity to hear pitch.

    4% picked this

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free