Pitch

Schouten

(1940) -used phase cancellation on fundamental tone of a complex, pitch was constant -changed periodicity of complex tone, pitch changed -describes Seebeck's early experiment (1840)

Small and Campbell

(1961) -looked at level effects and possibility that distortion produced influenced pitch perception -tried to mask out pitch perception -able to mask low pitch perception with high pass noise designed to mask the high frequency tone that was being presented -periodicity pitch is a neural phenomenon happening beyond the cochlea

effects of HL on pitch of complex tones

-NH: low harmonics provide the best pitch -IH have difficulty resolving harmonics- expect diminished pitch clarity -IH are able to combine information across frequency regions and use temporal information in pitch judgements -temporal information more important than spectral -poor neural synchrony is devastating

Analytic vs synthetic listening

-analytic: hear frequency components of a complex, hear one component go down in pitch -synthetic listening: focus on the whole sound and pay little attention to components, hear the pitch of the missing fundamental go up in pitch

missing fundamental

-best example of periodicity pitch -complex tone with energy above 1200 Hz (energy at harmonics of 200 Hz, 1400 Hz, 1600 Hz) -subject matches pitch to that of a 200 Hz tone, even though no physical energy at 200 Hz -perceived pitch corresponding to fundamental frequency of the complex tone

fractionalization

-method of studying pitch -present a standard tone -subject adjusts frequency of second tone until pitch is 1/2 that of the standard -adjust frequencies of 5 tones until separated by equal pitch intervals -results in pitch scale where pitch is expressed as a function of frequency

terminology

-musical pitch scales -music-uses subjective intervals of octaves as fifths -psychoacoustics- mel interval between 100 and 200 is different from that between 1000 and 2000 - beats -combination tones and aural harmonics -distortion products

place theory of pitch perception

-perception of missing fundamental due to presence of energy at the fundamental frequency- result of distortions -why is this unlikely? -how would we determine if this were a reasonable concept?

perceptual consequences

-pitch patterns tell us which words are important, structure, non-linguistic info -melody, intonation -cues to question/statement -reduced frequency selectivity- unable to resolve 2 different fundamental frequencies and discriminate 2 voices

cancellation method of measuring CTs

-probe tone presented at frequency of CT -phase and amplitude are adjusted until CT is canceled -cancellation occurs when probe is equal in amplitude and opposite in phase to CT -infer characteristics of CT -also have summation tones, difference tones, cubic difference tones

what is pitch?

-psychological correlate of frequency -high frequency tones are heard as high pitched -low frequency tones are heard as low pitched -precise manner in which pitch is perceived is still a mystery -frequency difference between 2 tones must be at least equal to the DL before you hear a difference in pitch -frequency and pitch are NOT related in a simple one to one manner

timbre

-quality of a sound -enables us to differentiate between the same note played on different instruments even though pitch, loudness, and duration are the same -larger number of harmonics= fuller, richer timbre

periodicity pitch

-residue pitch, low pitch, repetition pitch -high frequency tone interrupted periodically- perceive a pitch corresponding to the frequency that has a period equal to the interruption rate -high frequency tone interrupted every 10 ms (period of 100 Hz tone), match pitch to that of a 100 Hz tone

mels

-unit for pitch -1000 mels is the pitch of a 1000 Hz tone presented at 40 phons -2 times as high as 1000 meals is 2000 mels -tripling frequency (1000 to 3000 Hz) doubles pitch (1000 to 2000 Hz) -20,000 Hz frequency range=3,500 mels pitch range -critical bandwidths correspond to pitch ranges of 100-180 mels-barks

consonance vs dissonance

consonance- pleasant dissonance- unpleasant can also be driven by culture

spectral vs. virtual pitch

spectral- pitch perception is driven by the spectrum virtual- pitch perception is driven by experience, musician, music experience, culture- things other than the actual spectrum