Infants' pitch perception: inharmonic tonal complexes.
Two experiments assessed the effects of inharmonicity on 7- to 8-month-old infants' perception of the pitch of tonal complexes. A number of harmonic and inharmonic complexes were presented in a visually reinforced operant head turn procedure. In both experiments, infants demonstrated the ability to discriminate two harmonic complexes based on missing fundamental frequencies of 160 and 200 Hz. After learning this basic task, infants learned to discriminate inharmonic complexes, which were created by shifting the partials of the harmonic complexes upward by 30 Hz (experiment 1) or 20 Hz (experiment 2). Finally, three spectrally different inharmonic complexes represented each pitch, and infants attempted to categorize those complexes according to their pitches. In both experiments, infants successfully discriminated the pitches of the spectrally varying tonal complexes, but their performance deteriorated for the more strongly inharmonic complexes of experiment 1. These results suggest that, as for adults, the salience of pitch for inharmonic sounds decreases with increasing inharmonicity.
Clarkson
M G
MG
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta 30303, USA.
Clifton
R K
RK
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010898:Pitch Perception; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis