title: Can listeners hear who is singing? What is the pitch bandwidth of singer discrimination in untrained listeners?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study sought to determine the pitch bandwidth of singer discrimination based on singer gender, pitch range, and same-different voice category.
  
  
  METHODS
  Repeated measures factorial design.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study used a forced-choice paradigm, where listeners heard two different singers (singer 1 and singer 2) producing /ɑ/ at an identical pitch and an unknown singer (either singer 1 or singer 2) producing /ɑ/ at a different pitch. It was the listener's task to identify which singer (singer 1 or singer 2) was the unknown singer. Two baritones and two tenors were recorded producing /ɑ/ at the pitches C3, E3, G3, B3, D4, and F4. Two sopranos and two mezzo-sopranos were recorded producing /ɑ/ at the pitches C4, E4, G4, B4, D5, and F5. For each group of stimuli, male and female, all possible pairs of singers were constructed for the lowest pitch (C2 or C3, respectively) and highest pitch (F4 or F5, respectively). The unknown singer was varied across the remaining pitches.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For between category comparisons, the ability to discriminate singers diminished monotonically with pitch interval, reaching below chance levels between the intervals of the 9th and 11th. For within category comparisons, it was much harder to discriminate singers across pitch, particularly when the voices were female.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Timbre is not perceived as invariant across the entire singing range, and the bandwidth of this timbre invariance depends on multiple factors, including pitch range, gender, and same-different voice category.
authors: Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA. merickso@uthsc.edu
authors: Molly L
authors: ML
authors: Erickson
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001299:Audiometry; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D013714:Tennessee; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult