Dominance of missing fundamental versus spectrally cued pitch: individual differences for complex tones with unresolved harmonics.
In a two-alternative, forced-choice experiment, subjects had to compare the pitches of two sounds, A and B. Each sound was composed of four successive harmonics of a fundamental frequency between 100 to 250 Hz, added in cosine or Schröder phase. The harmonic frequencies of A were lower than those of B; the missing fundamental frequency of A was higher than that of B. The dominance of the missing fundamental versus the spectrally cued pitch--a pitch percept corresponding to spectral components--was measured as a function of nA, the lowest harmonic in A. The pitch percept is dominated by the missing fundamental if the harmonics are resolved (nA<7). If the harmonics become unresolved and are added in Schröder phase, the dominance shifts to a spectrally cued pitch (7<nA<13; 75% of the subjects). In the cosine phase condition, many subjects could detect the fundamental pitch well into the unresolved harmonic range (nA>20). For others, the transition was in the realm of partly resolved harmonics. This shows that the temporal envelope modulation of stimuli with only four unresolved harmonics can give a relatively clear fundamental pitch percept. However, this percept varies considerably among subjects.
Renken
Remco
R
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Neuroimaging Center, Graduate School for Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 2, 9713 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Wiersinga-Post
J Esther C
JE
Tomaskovic
Sonja
S
Duifhuis
Hendrikus
H
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D013018:Sound Spectrography