Role of the second formant in pitch perception of whispered and voiced vowels.
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Adult↗
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Results for “Pitch Perception”
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Letter: Anomaly in pitch perception.
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Deafness↗
Stimulus information and processing time in pitch perception.
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Humans↗
Periodicity pitch perception of retarded children.
In order to expand the body of information concerning auditory function in the presence of the generalized cortical dysfunction associated with severe mental retardation, the discrimination of periodicity pitch signals by nonverbal severely retarded children and adults of normal intelligence was examined using an operant conditioning adaptation of the psychophysical method of constant stimulus differences. The periodicity pitch difference limens (DLs) based on changes in repetition rate were compared with frequency DLs obtained from low (150 Hz) and high frequency (2200 Hz) sinusoids. Periodicity pitch signals were generated by gating a 2200-Hz sinusoid over a range from 141 to 159 pulses per sec and passing the signals through a narrow band-pass filter to ensure no low frequency energy was present. The DLs (75% correct discriminations) were computed from the three types of discrimination performance curves. Standard errors of the means were small and retarded subjects showed good test-retest reliability. The results indicated that the simple and complex pitch discrimination abilities for both normal and retarded subjects were similar.
Adult↗
Grouping in pitch perception: effects of onset asynchrony and ear of presentation of a mistuned component.
Three experiments investigated how the onset asynchrony and ear of presentation of a single mistuned frequency component influence its contribution to the pitch of an otherwise harmonic complex tone. Subjects matched the pitch of the target complex by adjusting the pitch of a second similar but strictly periodic complex tone. When the mistuned component (the 4th harmonic of a 155 Hz fundamental) started 160 ms or more before the remaining harmonics but stopped simultaneously with them, it made a reduced contribution to the pitch of the complex. It made no contribution if it started more than 300 ms before. Pitch shifts and their reduction with onset time were larger for short (90 ms) sounds than for long (410 ms). Pitch shifts were slightly larger when the mistuned component was presented to the same ear as the remaining 11 in-tune harmonics than to the opposite ear. Adding a "captor" complex tone with a fundamental of 200 Hz and a missing 3rd harmonic to the contralateral ear did not augment the effect of onset time, even though the captor was synchronous with the mistuned harmonic, the mistuned component was equal in frequency to the missing 3rd harmonic of the captor complex tone and it was played to the same ear as the captor. The results show that a difference in onset time can prevent a resolved frequency component from contributing to the pitch of a complex tone even though it is present throughout that complex tone.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
Effect of auditory neocortex ablation on pitch perception in the cat.
Cats which received one- or two-stage bilateral ablations of auditory cortex were compared to unoperated cats on a test involving the discrimination of increases (1.2 kHz) from decreases (0.8 kHZ) in the frequency of ongoing 1.0-kHz tone pulses. Whereas two-stage cats exhibited more evidence of postoperative retention for the original task than did one-stage cats, both groups relearned the discrimination in approximately the same number of trials as normal cats. Individual differences in difficulty of relearning apparently reflected the degree of undercutting of the polysensory association areas of the suprasylvian and lateral gyri. Following retraining, all cats received two discrimination transfer tests. The first test was identical to the original dis crimination problem in all respects except that different frequency values were substituted for the original set (i.e., 1.6-kHz tones alternating with either 2.0- or 1.2-kHz signals). Whereas both unoperated and two-stage cats had difficulty discriminating the new positive from negative trials, the one-stage cats exhibited a significant tendency to continue responding to changes invoving 1.2-kHz tones in the same manner as in the original discrimination task. In the second test the cats were asked to discriminate the original 1.2- and 0.8-kHz tones against a silent background. Both operated and unoperated cats performed significantly above chance on this test. These results suggest that the cats solved the original discrimination on the basis of absolute frequency cues rather than the directionality of frequency changes. The significance of these findings are discussed in relation to current concepts of the functional capacity of auditory decorticate animals.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
[Differences between right and left ears for pitch perception].
We define here tonal melodies and spectral melodies: For sounds containing only octaves, the former correspond to fundamental frequency variations and the latter to spectral envelope variations. In this paper we give statistical results of judgements showing that tonal melodies are better perceived by the right ear. Conversely the left ear is more able to recognize spectral melodies.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
On the role of spatial and temporal cues in the perception of the pitch of complex tones.
This paper describes a new approach to pitch perception. It focuses attention on the slight difference between the pitch of complex tone and the pitch of a pure tone with the same (fundamental) frequency. This approach is based on the assumption that pitch perception is based on both spatial and temporal cue analysis. In this study, the values provided by the temporal cue are calculated from physiological data from the auditory nerve fibers. The possible ratios of the pitch of complex tones relative to the pitch of pure tones at various frequencies are predicted. Psychophysical experimental results strongly support this prediction. In addition, another experiment suggests that the above psychophysical effect is not based upon a mutual masking effect in the spatial domain.
Cues↗
Accuracy of pitch matching for pure tones and for complex tones with overlapping or nonoverlapping harmonics.
The discrimination of the fundamental frequency (fo) of pairs of complex tones with no common harmonics is worse than the discrimination of fo for tones with all harmonics in common. These experiments were conducted to assess whether this effect is a result of pitch shifts between pairs of tones without common harmonics or whether it reflects influences of spectral differences (timbre) on the accuracy of pitch perception. In experiment 1, pitch matches were obtained between sounds drawn from the following types: (1) pure tones (P) with frequencies 100, 200, or 400 Hz; (2) a multiple-component complex tone, designated A, with harmonics 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, and fo = 100, 200, or 400 Hz; (3) A multiple-component complex tone, designated B, with harmonics 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16, and with fo = 100, 200 or 400 Hz. The following matches were made; A vs A, B vs B, A vs P, B vs P and P vs P. Pitch shifts were found between the pure tones and the complex tones (A vs P and B vs P), but not between the A and B tones (A vs B). However, the variability of the A vs B matches was significantly greater than that of the A vs A or B vs B matches. Also, the variability of the A vs P and B vs P matches was greater than that for the A vs B matches. In a second experiment, frequency difference limens (DLCs) were measured for the A vs A, B vs B, and A vs B pairs of sounds. The DLCs were larger for the A vs B pair than for A vs A or B vs B. The results suggest that the poor frequency discrimination of tones with no common harmonics does not result from pitch shifts between the tones. Rather, it seems that spectral differences between tones interfere with judgements of their relative pitch.
Adult↗
Far-field recorded frequency-following responses: correlates of low pitch auditory perception in humans.
The recent demonstration that auditory frequency-following responses (FFR) can be recorded by signal averaging from the human scalp, opened the way for studies correlating FFR with auditory experience. This report describes FFR amplitude changes as a function of stimulus intensity and the addition of masking noise. The first experiment revealed a high degree of consistency both within and across subjects in the latency, phase and waveform of averaged FFR. This experiment also demonstrated a monotonic relationship between average FFR amplitude and stimulus intensity between 40 and 65 dB SL. Results of the second experiment showed a close correlation between the detectability of a tone in a noise masker and FFR amplitude. FFR amplitude diminishes precipitously as noise intensity approaches or exceeds the threshold for masking of the tone. These results are interpreted as emphasizing the role of neural periodicity mechanisms in the preception of low frequencies.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
Perception of motion and position relative to the earth. An overview.
Results of the five experiments are consistent with the following generalizations. Canal-mediated turn perception (pitch, roll, or yaw) in earth-horizontal or earth-vertical plane, is suppressed in direct relationship to the magnitude of a linear acceleration vector lying in the plane of a responding canal when the magnitude of the linear vector is constant or increasing and when its direction is either fixed or rotating in the same direction as the concomitant canal signal. Canal-mediated turn perception (pitch, roll, or yaw) is not suppressed by a coplanar linear vector that is counterrotating relative to the canal signal. Change in perceived attitude (pitch, roll, or yaw) is very sluggish in the absence of concordant canal information; attitude change may not be an immediate otolith-mediated perceptual event but a slowly developing perception dependent upon cognitive appreciation of an immediate otolith angular position signal. Otolith phasic neural units, unreinforced by appropriate canal signals, may contribute more to a brief linear velocity component in perception than to rate of attitude change. Otolith-mediated attitude perception within a given earth-vertical plane can be distorted by strong coplanar angular velocity canal information. Once distorted, return to veridical attitude perception can be gradual because, in the absence of complimentary canal or visual information, recovery is dependent upon relatively slow cognitive appreciation of a prevailing otolith position signal. Several attractive hypotheses relating to the dynamics of attitude perception can only be tested by substantially more data on the dynamics of spatial orientation perception. Most of our objectives cannot be achieved without models that yield valid prediction of the dynamics of spatial orientation perception. All of the observations in these experiments were carried out in darkness, or, in the simulated catapult experiment, without external visual reference. Various forms of visual information will change the dynamics of spatial orientation perception. My discussion has been limited to consideration of the vestibular system, as though the canal and otolith systems completely controlled the dynamics of spatial orientation perceptions. Obviously other partners in the dynamics of postural control, including vision, proprioception, and expectation, must be included in this challenging field of research. Dedication to stereotyped ideas about objectivity in the 20th century has hindered advancement of knowledge on the dynamics of spatial orientation perception relative to rate of progress achieved by several scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries, who provided word pictures of perceived motions and tilts along with descriptions of the motions that engendered the pictures.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Gravitation↗
Is pitch a learned attribute of sounds? Two points in support of Terhardt's pitch theory.
Terhardt [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 55, 1061-1069 (1974)] postulated a pitch perception model wherein a learning stage constitutes an integral part: it is only repeated exposure to patterns of spectral pitch that will generate the percept of virtual pitch (i.e., the residue). Two examples, one clinical and one musical, are cited to support the idea that perception of the pitch of complex tones represents a case of pattern perception which is acquired with experience.
Hearing Loss, Sensorineural↗
Calculating virtual pitch.
A procedure for the schematic and automatic extraction of 'fundamental pitch' from complex tonal signals, such as voiced speech and music, has been developed. While the auditively relevant 'fundamental' of a complex signal cannot be defined in purely mathematical terms, an existent model of virtual-pitch perception turns out to provide a suitable basis. The procedure comprises the formation of determinant spectral pitches (or 'fundamental frequency') from those spectral pitches. The latter deduction is accomplished by a principle of subharmonic matching, for whose realization a simple, universal and efficient algorithm was found. While the calculation may be confined to the determination of 'nominal' virtual pitch, certain typical auditory phenomena, such as the influence of SPL, partial masking and interval stretch, may be accounted for as well, in which case 'true' virtual pitch is obtained. The procedure operates on the frequencies and amplitudes of the signal's spectral components, is suitable for implementation on readily available programmable calculators and other arithmetic computers, and may be used in real-time 'fundamental-pitch' extraction as well. The procedure's performance and its applicability to the research and engineering of auditory communication are illustrated by some examples.
Humans↗
Mechanisms of signal analysis and pattern perception in periodicity pitch.
Progress in the knowledge of auditory processing of complex sounds has been made through coordinated psychophysical, physiological and theoretical studies of periodicity pitch and combination tones. Periodicity pitch is the basis for human perception of musical notes and pitch of voiced speech. The mechanism of perception involves harmonic pattern recognition on the complex Fourier frequency spectra generated by auditory frequency analysis. Combination tones are perceptible distortion tones generated within the cochlea by nonlinear interaction of component stimulus tones. Perception of periodicity pitch is quantitatively accounted for by a two-stage process of frequency analysis subject to random errors and significant nonlinearities, followed by a pattern recognizer that operates very efficiently to measure the period of musical and speech sounds. The basic characteristic of the first stage is a Gaussian standard error function that quantifies the randomness in aural estimation of frequencies of component tones in a complex tone stimulus. Efficient aural measurement of neural spike intervals from the eighth nerve provides a physiological account for the psychophysical characteristic of aural frequency analysis with complex sounds. Although cochlear filtering is an essential stage in auditory frequency analysis, neural time following, rather than details of the filter characteristics, is the decisive factor in determining the precision of aural frequency measurement. It is likely that peripheral auditory coding is similar for sounds in periodicity pitch and in speech perception, although the 'second stage' representing central processing would differ.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
Musical pitch of two-tone complexes and predictions by modern pitch theories.
Most studies of the musical pitch of harmonic tone complexes have utilized signals comparing two or more successive harmonics. The present study provides systematic data on melodic interval recognition by three musically experienced subjects with sounds whose missing fundamentals were represented by two nonsuccessive harmonics nf0,(n + m)f0, delivered to separate ears. Data were obtained in the ranges 1 less than or equal to n less than or equal to 9, 2 less than or equal to m less than or equal to 4, and 200 Hz less than or equal to f0 less than or equal to 1000 Hz. The data are interpreted in the light of three theories, the "optimum processor theory," the "virtual pitch theory," and the "pattern transformation theory." For each theory, a constraint on preformance is proposed based on interference between the "analytic" and "synthetic" pitch perception modes. The former is obtained with large spacings between harmonics, where listeners are more likely to perceive harmonics as individual tones, each having their own pitch. This degrades the listener's ability to hear the fundamental pitch.
Humans↗
Auditory processing of complex sounds: an overview.
The past 30 years has seen a remarkable development in our understanding of how the auditory system--particularly the peripheral system--processes complex sounds. Perhaps the most significant has been our understanding of the mechanisms underlying auditory frequency selectivity and their importance for normal and impaired auditory processing. Physiologically vulnerable cochlear filtering can account for many aspects of our normal and impaired psychophysical frequency selectivity with important consequences for the perception of complex sounds. For normal hearing, remarkable mechanisms in the organ of Corti, involving enhancement of mechanical tuning (in mammals probably by feedback of electro-mechanically generated energy from the hair cells), produce exquisite tuning, reflected in the tuning properties of cochlear nerve fibres. Recent comparisons of physiological (cochlear nerve) and psychophysical frequency selectivity in the same species indicate that the ear's overall frequency selectivity can be accounted for by this cochlear filtering, at least in bandwidth terms. Because this cochlear filtering is physiologically vulnerable, it deteriorates in deleterious conditions of the cochlea--hypoxia, disease, drugs, noise overexposure, mechanical disturbance--and is reflected in impaired psychophysical frequency selectivity. This is a fundamental feature of sensorineural hearing loss of cochlear origin, and is of diagnostic value. This cochlear filtering, particularly as reflected in the temporal patterns of cochlear fibres to complex sounds, is remarkably robust over a wide range of stimulus levels. Furthermore, cochlear filtering properties are a prime determinant of the 'place' and 'time' coding of frequency at the cochlear nerve level, both of which appear to be involved in pitch perception. The problem of how the place and time coding of complex sounds is effected over the ear's remarkably wide dynamic range is briefly addressed. In the auditory brainstem, particularly the dorsal cochlear nucleus, are inhibitory mechanisms responsible for enhancing the spectral and temporal contrasts in complex sounds. These mechanisms are now being dissected neuropharmacologically. At the cortical level, mechanisms are evident that are capable of abstracting biologically relevant features of complex sounds. Fundamental studies of how the auditory system encodes and processes complex sounds are vital to promising recent applications in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of the hearing impaired.
Animals↗
Tone-segregation by phase: on the phase sensitivity of the single ear.
A monaural complex tone is synthesized from 12 harmonically related pure tones, played in phase. In each of 12 segments, one of the tones (the target) is played out of phase so that the sequence of targets is increasing or decreasing in frequency. If the target is at least 30 degrees out of phase, the targets are perceptually segregated. This tone-segregation by phase raises doubts concerning several current theories of pitch perception. The phenomenon is conjectured to be caused by the ear's nonlinear compressive transfer characteristic or by a temporal analysis of the stimulus.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
Pitch discrimination and phase sensitivity in young and elderly subjects and its relationship to frequency selectivity.
Frequency difference limens for pure tones (DLFs) and for complex tones (DLCs) were measured for four groups of subjects: young normal hearing, young hearing impaired, elderly with near-normal hearing, and elderly hearing impaired. The auditory filters of the subjects had been measured in earlier experiments using the notched-noise method, for center frequencies (fc) of 100, 200, 400, and 800 Hz. The DLFs for both impaired groups were higher than for the young normal group at all fc's (50-4000 Hz). The DLFs at a given fc were generally only weakly correlated with the sharpness of the auditory filter at that fc, and some subjects with broad filters had near-normal DLFs at low frequencies. Some subjects in the elderly normal group had very large DLFs at low frequencies in spite of near-normal auditory filters. These results suggest a partial dissociation of frequency selectivity and frequency discrimination of pure tones. The DLCs for the two impaired groups were higher than those for the young normal group at all fundamental frequencies (fo) tested (50, 100, 200, and 400 Hz); the DLCs for the elderly normal group were intermediate. At fo = 50 Hz, DLCs for a complex tone containing only low harmonics (1-5) were markedly higher than for complex tones containing higher harmonics, for all subject groups, suggesting that pitch was conveyed largely by the higher, unresolved harmonics. For the elderly impaired group, and some subjects in the elderly normal group, DLCs were larger for a complex tone with lower harmonics (1-12) than for tones without lower harmonics (4-12 and 6-12) for fo's up to 200 Hz. Some elderly normal subjects had markedly larger-than-normal DLCs in spite of near-normal auditory filters. The DLCs tended to be larger for complexes with components added in alternating sine/cosine phase than for complexes with components added in cosine phase. Phase effects were significant for all groups, but were small for the young normal group. The results are not consistent with place-based models of the pitch perception of complex tones; rather, they suggest that pitch is at least partly determined by temporal mechanisms.
Adult↗