The role of temporal fine structure information for the low pitch of high-frequency complex tones. 2011

Sébastien Santurette, and Torsten Dau
Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DTU Bygning 352, Orsteds Plads, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. ses@elektro.dtu.dk

The fused low pitch evoked by complex tones containing only unresolved high-frequency components demonstrates the ability of the human auditory system to extract pitch using a temporal mechanism in the absence of spectral cues. However, the temporal features used by such a mechanism have been a matter of debate. For stimuli with components lying exclusively in high-frequency spectral regions, the slowly varying temporal envelope of sounds is often assumed to be the only information contained in auditory temporal representations, and it has remained controversial to what extent the fast amplitude fluctuations, or temporal fine structure (TFS), of the conveyed signal can be processed. Using a pitch matching paradigm, the present study found that the low pitch of inharmonic transposed tones with unresolved components was consistent with the timing between the most prominent TFS maxima in their waveforms, rather than envelope maxima. Moreover, envelope cues did not take over as the absolute frequency or rank of the lowest component was raised and TFS cues thus became less effective. Instead, the low pitch became less salient. This suggests that complex pitch perception does not rely on envelope coding as such, and that TFS representation might persist at higher frequencies than previously thought.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D010897 Pitch Discrimination The ability to differentiate sound frequency or pitch. Discrimination, Pitch,Pitch Discriminations
D003463 Cues Signals for an action; that specific portion of a perceptual field or pattern of stimuli to which a subject has learned to respond. Cue
D005260 Female Females
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000161 Acoustic Stimulation Use of sound to elicit a response in the nervous system. Auditory Stimulation,Stimulation, Acoustic,Stimulation, Auditory
D000328 Adult A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available. Adults
D001301 Audiometry, Pure-Tone Measurement of hearing based on the use of pure tones of various frequencies and intensities as auditory stimuli. Audiometry, Bekesy,Audiometry, Pure Tone,Bekesy Audiometry,Pure-Tone Audiometry
D001306 Auditory Pathways NEURAL PATHWAYS and connections within the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM, beginning at the hair cells of the ORGAN OF CORTI, continuing along the eighth cranial nerve, and terminating at the AUDITORY CORTEX. Auditory Pathway,Pathway, Auditory,Pathways, Auditory
D001309 Auditory Threshold The audibility limit of discriminating sound intensity and pitch. Auditory Thresholds,Threshold, Auditory,Thresholds, Auditory

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