Pitch perception: Frequency selectivity and temporal coding

Authors

  • Andrew J. Oxenham Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
  • Michael V. Keebler Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

Abstract

A number of studies have shown that the ability to accurately discriminate small changes in fundamental frequency (F0) varies with the lowest harmonic present in the complex. When low-order harmonics are present, F0 difference limens (DLs) are generally small, indicating good performance. When only high-order harmonics (greater than the 10th) are present, performance can be worse by an order of magnitude. Poor performance when only high-number harmonics are present has been ascribed to a lack of peripherally resolved harmonics. Here we tested this notion by measuring F0DLs for complexes con- sisting of twelve consecutive harmonics over a wide range of F0s (30 – 2000 Hz) as a function of the lowest harmonic number present. For F0s between 100 and 200 Hz, performance went from good to poor as the lowest harmonic present increased from 9 to 12. In contrast, at lower and higher F0s, the tran- sition occurred at lower harmonics in ways that would not be necessarily predicted simply by harmonic resolvability and frequency selectivity. At high F0s, good performance was often observed even when all the harmonics were above 6 kHz, and some harmonics were peripherally resolved, suggesting that temporal fine-structure coding of individual harmonics may not be a prerequisite for complex pitch perception.

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Additional Files

Published

2007-12-15

How to Cite

Oxenham, A. J., & Keebler, M. V. (2007). Pitch perception: Frequency selectivity and temporal coding. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 1, 273–280. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2007-26

Issue

Section

2007/3. Perceptual correlates of hearing loss and auditory processing disorders