Across-frequency interference effects in fundamental frequency discrimination: questioning evidence for two pitch mechanisms

Carlyon and Shackleton [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3541-3554 (1994)] presented an influential study supporting the existence of two pitch mechanisms, one for complex tones containing resolved and one for complex tones containing only unresolved components. The current experiments provide an alternative explanation for their finding, namely the existence of across-frequency interference in fundamental frequency (F0) discrimination. Sensitivity (d') was measured for F0 discrimination between two sequentially presented 400 ms complex (target) tones containing only unresolved components. In experiment 1, the target was filtered between 1375 and 15,000 Hz, had a nominal F0 of 88 Hz, and was presented either alone or with an additional complex tone ("interferer"). The interferer was filtered between 125-625 Hz, and its F0 varied between 88 and 114.4 Hz across blocks. Sensitivity was significantly reduced in the presence of the interferer, and this effect decreased as its F0 was moved progressively further from that of the target. Experiment 2 showed that increasing the level of a synchronously gated lowpass noise that spectrally overlapped with the interferer reduced this "pitch discrimination interference (PDI)". In experiment 3A, the target was filtered between 3900 and 5400 Hz and had an F0 of either 88 or 250 Hz. It was presented either alone or with an interferer, filtered between 1375 and 1875 Hz with an F0 corresponding to the nominal target F0. PDI was larger in the presence of the resolved (250 Hz F0) than in the presence of the unresolved (88 Hz F0) interferer, presumably because the pitch of the former was more salient than that of the latter. Experiments 4A and 4B showed that PDI was reduced but not eliminated when the interferer was gated on 200 ms before and off 200 ms after the target, and that some PDI was observed with a continuous interferer. The current findings provide an alternative interpretation of a study supposedly providing strong evidence for the existence of two pitch mechanisms.     

Across-frequency pitch discrimination interference between complex tones containing resolved harmonics

Pitch discrimination interference (PDI) refers to an impairment in the ability to discriminate changes in the fundamental frequency (F0) of a target harmonic complex, caused by another harmonic complex (the interferer) presented simultaneously in a remote spectral region. So far, PDI has been demonstrated for target complexes filtered into a higher spectral region than the interferer and containing no peripherally resolved harmonics in their passband. Here, it is shown that PDI also occurs when the target harmonic complex contains resolved harmonics in its passband (experiment 1). PDI was also observed when the target was filtered into a lower spectral region than that of the interferer (experiment 2), revealing that differences in relative harmonic dominance and pitch salience between the simultaneous target and the interferer, as confirmed using pitch matches (experiment 3), do not entirely explain PDI. When the target was in the higher spectral region, and the F0 separation between the target and the interferer was around 7% or 10%, dramatic PDI effects were observed despite the relatively large FO separation between the two sequential targets (14%-20%). Overall, the results suggest that PDI is more general than previously thought, and is not limited to targets consisting only of unresolved harmonics.     

Perceptual learning of fundamental frequency discrimination: effects of fundamental frequency, harmonic number, and component phase

Thresholds (F0DLs) were measured for discrimination of the fundamental frequency (F0) of a group of harmonics (group B) embedded in harmonics with a fixed F0. Miyazono and Moore [(2009). Acoust. Sci. & Tech. 30, 383386] found a large training effect for tones with high harmonics in group B, when the harmonics were added in cosine phase. It is shown here that this effect was due to use of a cue related to pitch pulse asynchrony (PPA). When PPA cues were disrupted by introducing a temporal offset between the envelope peaks of the harmonics in group B and the remaining harmonics, F0DLs increased markedly. Perceptual learning was examined using a training stimulus with cosine-phase harmonics, F0 = 50 Hz, and high harmonics in group B, under conditions where PPA was not useful. Learning occurred, and it transferred to other cosine-phase tones, but not to random-phase tones. A similar experiment with F0 = 100 Hz showed a learning effect which transferred to a cosine-phase tone with mainly high unresolved harmonics, but not to cosine-phase tones with low harmonics, and not to random-phase tones. The learning found here appears to be specific to tones for which F0 discrimination is based on distinct peaks in the temporal envelope.     

Effect of noise on the detectability and fundamental frequency discrimination of complex tones

Percent correct performance for discrimination of the fundamental frequency (0) of a complex tone was measured as a function of the level of a background pink noise (using fixed values of the difference in F0, deltaF0) and compared with percent correct performance for detection of the complex tone in noise, again as a function of noise level. The tone included some low, resolvable components, but not the fundamental component. The results were used to test the hypothesis that the worsening in F0 discrimination with increasing noise level was caused by the reduced detectability of the tone rather than by reduced precision of the internal representation of F0. For small values of deltaF0, the hypothesis was rejected because measured performance fell below that predicted by the hypothesis. However, this was true only for high noise levels, within 2-4.5 dB of the level required for masked threshold. The results indicate that the mechanism for extracting the F0 of a complex tone with resolved harmonics is remarkably robust. They also indicate that adding a background noise to a complex tone containing resolved harmonics is not a good means for equating its pitch salience with that of a complex tone containing only unresolved harmonics.     

Sequential F0 comparisons between resolved and unresolved harmonics: no evidence for translation noise between two pitch mechanisms

Carlyon and Shackleton [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3541-3554 (1994)] suggested that fundamental-frequency (F0) discrimination performance between resolved and unresolved harmonics is limited by an internal "translation" noise between the outputs of two distinct F0 encoding mechanisms, in addition to the encoding noise associated with each mechanism. To test this hypothesis further, F0 difference limens (DLF0s) were measured in six normal-hearing listeners using sequentially presented groups of harmonics. The two groups of harmonics presented on each trial were bandpass filtered into the same or different spectral regions, in such a way that both groups contained mainly resolved harmonics, both groups contained only unresolved harmonics, or one group contained mainly resolved and the other only unresolved harmonics. Three spectral regions (low: 600-1150 Hz, mid: 1400-2500 Hz, or high: 3000-5250 Hz) and two nominal F0s (100 and 200 Hz) were used. The DLF0s measured in across-region conditions were well accounted for by a model assuming only two sources of internal noise: the encoding noise estimated on the basis of the within-region results plus a constant noise associated with F0 comparisons across different spectral regions, independent of resolvability. No evidence for an across-pitch-mechanism translation noise was found. A reexamination of previous evidence for the existence of such noise suggests that the present negative outcome is unlikely to be explained by insufficient measurement sensitivity or an unusually large across-region comparison noise in the present study. While the results do not rule out the possibility of two separate pitch mechanisms, they indicate that the F0s of sequentially presented resolved and unresolved harmonics can be compared internally at no or negligible extra cost.     

Relative contributions of temporal and place pitch cues to fundamental frequency discrimination in cochlear implantees

The effect of the filter bank on fundamental frequency (F0) discrimination was examined in four Nucleus CI24 cochlear implant subjects for synthetic stylized vowel-like stimuli. The four tested filter banks differed in cutoff frequencies, amount of overlap between filters, and shape of the filters. To assess the effects of temporal pitch cues on F0 discrimination, temporal fluctuations were removed above 10 Hz in one condition and above 200 Hz in another. Results indicate that F0 discrimination based upon place pitch cues is possible, but just-noticeable differences exceed 1 octave or more depending on the filter bank used. Increasing the frequency resolution in the F0 range improves the F0 discrimination based upon place pitch cues. The results of F0 discrimination based upon place pitch agree with a model that compares the centroids of the electrical excitation pattern. The addition of temporal fluctuations up to 200 Hz significantly improves F0 discrimination. Just-noticeable differences using both place and temporal pitch cues range from 6% to 60%. Filter banks that do not resolve the higher harmonics provided the best temporal pitch cues, because temporal pitch cues are clearest when the fluctuation on all channels is at F0 and preferably in phase.     

Detection and F0 discrimination of harmonic complex tones in the presence of competing tones or noise

Normal-hearing listeners' ability to "hear out" the pitch of a target harmonic complex tone (HCT) was tested with simultaneous HCT or noise maskers, all bandpass-filtered into the same spectral region (1200-3600 Hz). Target-to-masker ratios (TMRs) necessary to discriminate fixed fundamental-frequency (F0) differences were measured for target F0s between 100 and 400 Hz. At high F0s (400 Hz), asynchronous gating of masker and signal, presenting the masker in a different F0 range, and reducing the F0 rove of the masker, all resulted in improved performance. At the low F0s (100 Hz), none of these manipulations improved performance significantly. The findings are generally consistent with the idea that the ability to segregate sounds based on cues such as F0 differences and onset/offset asynchronies can be strongly limited by peripheral harmonic resolvability. However, some cases were observed where perceptual segregation appeared possible, even when no peripherally resolved harmonics were present in the mixture of target and masker. A final experiment, comparing TMRs necessary for detection and F0 discrimination, showed that F0 discrimination of the target was possible with noise maskers at only a few decibels above detection threshold, whereas similar performance with HCT maskers was only possible 15-25 dB above detection threshold.     

Perception of the low pitch of frequency-shifted complexes

When all of the components in a harmonic complex tone are shifted in frequency by delta f, the pitch of the complex shifts roughly in proportion to delta f. For tones with a small number of components, the shift is usually somewhat larger than predicted from pitch theories, which has been attributed to the influence of combination tones [Smoorenburg, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 48, 924-941 (1970)]. Experiment 1 assessed whether combination tones influence the pitch of complex tones with more than five harmonics, by using noise to mask the combination tones. The matching stimulus was a harmonic complex. Test complexes were bandpass filtered with passbands centered on harmonic numbers 5 (resolved), 11 (intermediate), or 16 (unresolved) and fundamental frequencies (FOs) were 100, 200, or 400 Hz. For the intermediate and unresolved conditions, the matching stimuli were filtered with the same passband to minimize differences in the excitation patterns of the test and matching stimuli. For the resolved condition, the matching stimulus had a passband centered above that of the test stimulus, to avoid common partials. For resolved and intermediate conditions, pitch shifts were observed that could generally be predicted from the frequencies of the partials. The shifts were unaffected by addition of noise to mask combination tones. For the unresolved condition, no pitch shift was observed, which suggests that pitch is not based on temporal fine structure for stimuli containing only high unresolved harmonics. Experiment 2 used three-component complexes resembling those of Schouten [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 34, 1418-1424 (1962)]. Nominal harmonic numbers were 3, 4, 5 (resolved), 8, 9, 10 (intermediate), or 13, 14, 15 (unresolved) and F0s were 50, 100, 200, or 400 Hz. Clear shifts in the matches were found for all conditions, including unresolved. For the latter, subjects may have matched the "center of gravity" of the excitation patterns of the test and matching stimuli.     

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.     

Memory for pitch versus memory for loudness

The decays of pitch traces and loudness traces in short-term auditory memory were compared in forced-choice discrimination experiments. The two stimuli presented on each trial were separated by a variable delay (D); they consisted of pure tones, series of resolved harmonics, or series of unresolved harmonics mixed with lowpass noise. A roving procedure was employed in order to minimize the influence of context coding. During an initial phase of each experiment, frequency and intensity discrimination thresholds [P(C) = 0.80] were measured with an adaptive staircase method while D was fixed at 0.5 s. The corresponding physical differences (in cents or dB) were then constantly presented at four values of D: 0.5, 2, 5, and 10 s. In the case of intensity discrimination, performance (d') markedly decreased when D increased from 0.5 to 2 s, but was not further reduced when D was longer. In the case of frequency discrimination, the decline of performance as a function of D was significantly less abrupt. This divergence suggests that pitch and loudness are processed in separate modules of auditory memory.     

Pitch discrimination of diotic and dichotic tone complexes: harmonic resolvability or harmonic number?

Three experiments investigated the relationship between harmonic number, harmonic resolvability, and the perception of harmonic complexes. Complexes with successive equal-amplitude sine- or random-phase harmonic components of a 100- or 200-Hz fundamental frequency (f0) were presented dichotically, with even and odd components to opposite ears, or diotically, with all harmonics presented to both ears. Experiment 1 measured performance in discriminating a 3.5%-5% frequency difference between a component of a harmonic complex and a pure tone in isolation. Listeners achieved at least 75% correct for approximately the first 10 and 20 individual harmonics in the diotic and dichotic conditions, respectively, verifying that only processes before the binaural combination of information limit frequency selectivity. Experiment 2 measured fundamental frequency difference limens (f0 DLs) as a function of the average lowest harmonic number. Similar results at both f0's provide further evidence that harmonic number, not absolute frequency, underlies the order-of-magnitude increase observed in f0 DLs when only harmonics above about the 10th are presented. Similar results under diotic and dichotic conditions indicate that the auditory system, in performing f0 discrimination, is unable to utilize the additional peripherally resolved harmonics in the dichotic case. In experiment 3, dichotic complexes containing harmonics below the 12th, or only above the 15th, elicited pitches of the f0 and twice the f0, respectively. Together, experiments 2 and 3 suggest that harmonic number, regardless of peripheral resolvability, governs the transition between two different pitch percepts, one based on the frequencies of individual resolved harmonics and the other based on the periodicity of the temporal envelope.     

The effect of modulation rate on the detection of frequency modulation and mistuning of complex tones

Experiment 1 measured frequency modulation detection thresholds (FMTs) for harmonic complex tones as a function of modulation rate. Six complexes were used, with fundamental frequencies (F0s) of either 88 or 250 Hz, bandpass filtered into a LOW (125-625 Hz), MID (1375-1875 Hz) or HIGH (3900-5400 Hz) frequency region. The FMTs were about an order of magnitude greater for the three complexes whose harmonics were unresolved by the peripheral auditory system (F0 = 88 Hz in the MID region and both F0s in the HIGH region) than for the other three complexes, which contained some resolved harmonics. Thresholds increased with increases in FM rate above 2 Hz for all conditions. The increase was larger when the F0 was 88 Hz than when it was 250 Hz, and was also larger in the LOW than in the MID and HIGH regions. Experiment 2 measured thresholds for detecting mistuning produced by modulating the F0s of two simultaneously presented complexes out of phase by 180 degrees. The size of the resulting mistuning oscillates at a rate equal to the rate of FM applied to the two carriers. At low FM rates, thresholds were lowest when the harmonics were either resolved for both complexes or unresolved for both complexes, and highest when resolvability differed across complexes. For pairs of complexes with resolved harmonics, mistuning thresholds increased dramatically as the FM rate was increased above 2-5 Hz, in a way which could not be accounted for by the effect of modulation rate on the FMTs for the individual complexes. A third experiment, in which listeners detected constant ("static") mistuning between pairs of frequency-modulated complexes, provided evidence that this deterioration was due the harmonics in one of the two "resolved" complexes becoming unresolved at high FM rates, when analyzed over some finite time window. It is concluded that the detection of time-varying mistuning between groups of harmonics is limited by factors that are not apparent in FM detection data.     

Frequency discrimination of complex tones with overlapping and non-overlapping harmonics

These experiments address the following issues. (1) When two complex tones contain different harmonics, do the differences in timbre between them impair the ability to discriminate the pitches of the tones? (2) When two complex tones have only a single component in common, and that component is the most discriminable component in each tone, is the frequency discrimination of the component affected by differences in residue pitch between the two tones? (3) How good is the pitch discrimination of complex tones with no common components when each tone contains multiple harmonics, so as to avoid ambiguity of pitch? (4) Is the pitch discrimination of complex tones with common harmonics impaired by shifting the component frequencies to nonharmonic values? In all experiments, frequency difference limens (DLCs) were measured for multiple-component complex tones, using an adaptive two-interval, two-alternative, forced-choice task. Three highly trained subjects were used. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) When two tones have the first six harmonics in common, DLCs are larger when the upper harmonics are different than when the upper harmonics are in common or are absent. It appears that differences in timbre impair DLCs. (2) Discrimination of the frequency of a single common partial in two complex tones is worse when the two tones have different residue pitches than when they have the same residue pitch. (3) DLCs for complex tones with no common harmonics are generally larger than those for complex tones with common harmonics. For the former, large individual differences occur, probably because subjects are affected differently by differences in timbre. (4) DLCs for harmonic complex tones are smaller than DLCs for complex tones in which the components are mistuned from harmonic values. This can probably be attributed to the less distinct residue pitch of the inharmonic complexes, rather than to reduced discriminability of partials. Overall, the results support the idea that DLCs for complex tones with common harmonics depend on residue pitch comparisons, rather than on comparisons of the pitches of partials.     

Learning to perceive pitch differences

This paper reports two experiments concerning the stimulus specificity of pitch discrimination learning. In experiment 1, listeners were initially trained, during ten sessions (about 11,000 trials), to discriminate a monaural pure tone of 3000 Hz from ipsilateral pure tones with slightly different frequencies. The resulting perceptual learning (improvement in discrimination thresholds) appeared to be frequency-specific since, in subsequent sessions, new learning was observed when the 3000-Hz standard tone was replaced by a standard tone of 1200 Hz, or 6500 Hz. By contrast, a subsequent presentation of the initial tones to the contralateral ear showed that the initial learning was not, or was only weakly, ear-specific. In experiment 2, training in pitch discrimination was initially provided using complex tones that consisted of harmonics 3-7 of a missing fundamental (near 100 Hz for some listeners, 500 Hz for others). Subsequently, the standard complex was replaced by a standard pure tone with a frequency which could be either equal to the standard complex's missing fundamental or remote from it. In the former case, the two standard stimuli were matched in pitch. However, this perceptual relationship did not appear to favor the transfer of learning. Therefore, the results indicated that pitch discrimination learning is, at least to some extent, timbre-specific, and cannot be viewed as a reduction of an internal noise which would affect directly the output of a neural device extracting pitch from both pure tones and complex tones including low-rank harmonics.     

Better place-coding of the fundamental frequency in cochlear implants

In current cochlear implant systems, the fundamental frequency F0 of a complex sound is encoded by temporal fluctuations in the envelope of the electrical signals presented on the electrodes. In normal hearing, the lower harmonics of a complex sound are resolved, in contrast with a cochlear implant system. In the present study, it is investigated whether "place-coding" of the first harmonic improves the ability of an implantee to discriminate complex sounds with different fundamental frequencies. Therefore, a new filter bank was constructed, for which the first harmonic is always resolved in two adjacent filters, and the balance between both filter outputs is directly related to the frequency of the first harmonic. The new filter bank was compared with a filter bank that is typically used in clinical processors, both with and without the presence of temporal cues in the stimuli. Four users of the LAURA cochlear implant participated in a pitch discrimination task to determine detection thresholds for F0 differences. The results show that these thresholds decrease noticeably for the new filter bank, if no temporal cues are present in the stimuli. If temporal cues are included, the differences between the results for both filter banks become smaller, but a clear advantage is still observed for the new filter bank. This demonstrates the feasibility of using place-coding for the fundamental frequency.     

Evidence against an effect of grouping by spectral regularity on the perception of virtual pitch

Two experiments investigated the role of the regularity of the frequency spacing of harmonics, as a separate factor from harmonicity, on the perception of the virtual pitch of a harmonic series. The first experiment compared the shifts produced by mistuning the 3rd, 4th, and 5th harmonics in the pitch of two harmonic series: the odd-H and the all-H tones. The odd-H tone contained odd harmonics 1 to 11, plus the 4th harmonic; the all-H tone contained harmonics 1 to 12. Both tones had a fundamental frequency of 155 Hz. Pitch shifts produced by mistuning the 3rd harmonic, but not the 4th and 5th harmonics, were found to be significantly larger for the odd-H tone than for the all-H tone. This finding was consistent with the idea that grouping by spectral regularity affects pitch perception since an odd harmonic made a larger contribution than an adjacent even harmonic to the pitch of the odd-H tone. However, an alternative explanation was that the 3rd mistuned harmonic produced larger pitch shifts within the odd-H tone than the 4th mistuned harmonic because of differences in the partial masking of these harmonics by adjacent harmonics. The second experiment tested these explanations by measuring pitch shifts for a modified all-H tone in which each mistuned odd harmonic was tested in the presence of the 4th harmonic, but in the absence of its other even-numbered neighbor. The results showed that, for all mistuned harmonics, pitch shifts for the modified all-H tone were not significantly different from those for the odd-H tone. These findings suggest that the harmonic relations among frequency components, rather than the regularity of their frequency spacing, is the primary factor for the perception of the virtual pitch of complex sounds.     

The effect of hearing loss on the resolution of partials and fundamental frequency discrimination

The relationship between the ability to hear out partials in complex tones, discrimination of the fundamental frequency (F0) of complex tones, and frequency selectivity was examined for subjects with mild-to-moderate cochlear hearing loss. The ability to hear out partials was measured using a two-interval task. Each interval included a sinusoid followed by a complex tone; one complex contained a partial with the same frequency as the sinusoid, whereas in the other complex that partial was missing. Subjects had to indicate the interval in which the partial was present in the complex. The components in the complex were uniformly spaced on the ERB(N)-number scale. Performance was generally good for the two "edge" partials, but poorer for the inner partials. Performance for the latter improved with increasing spacing. F0 discrimination was measured for a bandpass-filtered complex tone containing low harmonics. The equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) of the auditory filter was estimated using the notched-noise method for center frequencies of 0.5, 1, and 2 kHz. Significant correlations were found between the ability to hear out inner partials, F0 discrimination, and the ERB. The results support the idea that F0 discrimination of tones with low harmonics depends on the ability to resolve the harmonics.     

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.     

Extracting spectral envelopes: formant frequency matching between sounds on different and modulated fundamental frequencies

The four experiments reported here measure listeners' accuracy and consistency in adjusting a formant frequency of one- or two-formant complex sounds to match the timbre of a target sound. By presenting the target and the adjustable sound on different fundamental frequencies, listeners are prevented from performing the task by comparing the absolute or relative levels of resolved spectral components. Experiment 1 uses two-formant vowellike sounds. When the two sounds have the same F0, the variability of matches (within-subject standard deviation) for either the first or the second formant is around 1%-3%, which is comparable to existing data on formant frequency discrimination thresholds. With a difference in F0, variability increases to around 8% for first-formant matches, but to only about 4% for second-formant matches. Experiment 2 uses sounds with a single formant at 1100 or 1200 Hz with both sounds on either low or high fundamental frequencies. The increase in variability produced by a difference in F0 is greater for high F0's (where the harmonics close to the formant peak are resolved) than it is for low F0's (where they are unresolved). Listeners also showed systematic errors in their mean matches to sounds with different high F0's. The direction of the systematic errors was towards the most intense harmonic. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that introduction of a vibratolike frequency modulation (FM) on F0 reduces the variability of matches, but does not reduce the systematic error. The experiments demonstrate, for the specific frequencies and FM used, that there is a perceptual cost to interpolating a spectral envelope across resolved harmonics.     

兴奋模式下谐波复合音音高感知机制的研究

通过测量谐波复合音的基频辨别阈,探讨中等"高次谐波"的音高感知是否依赖于谐波的可分离性,以及掩蔽音对实验结果的影响。实验方法:在目标音单独存在或目标音与掩蔽音混合时,将刺激通过高、中、低三个带通滤波器以获得不同的谐波可分离度。实验刺激设计为5种基频差异和4种相位组合。五名被试均为年轻人,纯音听阈≤15 dB HL。研究结果发现:谐波复合音的基频辨别阈随着信号频段的上移而增大;目标音和掩蔽音的基频差异对基频辨别阈有显著影响;但相位影响不显著。结论:谐波的可分离性对基频辨别阈有显著影响,但中等"高次谐波"的音高感知不依赖于可分离性;混合音的大部分音高感知结果与兴奋模式的峰值大小密切相关。