The influence of spectral composition of complex tones and of musical experience on the perceptibility of virtual pitch

Annemarie Preisler

doi:10.3758/bf03211783

The influence of spectral composition of complex tones and of musical experience on the perceptibility of virtual pitch.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.403147 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 91 (4) ◽

pp. 2436-2436

Author(s):

Annemarie Preisler

Keyword(s):

Spectral Composition ◽

Musical Experience ◽

Complex Tones ◽

Virtual Pitch

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Rabbits use both spectral and temporal cues to discriminate the fundamental frequency of harmonic complexes with missing fundamentals

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00366.2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joseph D Wagner ◽

Alice Gelman ◽

Kenneth E. Hancock ◽

Yoojin Chung ◽

Bertrand Delgutte

Keyword(s):

Fundamental Frequency ◽

Human Performance ◽

Spectral Composition ◽

Pitch Perception ◽

Wide Frequency Range ◽

Spatial Gradient ◽

Harmonic Complex ◽

Complex Tones ◽

Behavioral Paradigm ◽

Animal Vocalizations

The pitch of harmonic complex tones (HCT) common in speech, music and animal vocalizations plays a key role in the perceptual organization of sound. Unraveling the neural mechanisms of pitch perception requires animal models but little is known about complex pitch perception by animals, and some species appear to use different pitch mechanisms than humans. Here, we tested rabbits' ability to discriminate the fundamental frequency (F0) of HCTs with missing fundamentals using a behavioral paradigm inspired by foraging behavior in which rabbits learned to harness a spatial gradient in F0 to find the location of a virtual target within a room for a food reward. Rabbits were initially trained to discriminate HCTs with F0s in the range 400-800 Hz and with harmonics covering a wide frequency range (800-16,000 Hz), and then tested with stimuli differing either in spectral composition to test the role of harmonic resolvability (Experiment 1), or in F0 range (Experiment 2), or both F0 and spectral content (Experiment 3). Together, these experiments show that rabbits can discriminate HCTs over a wide F0 range (200-1600 Hz) encompassing the range of conspecific vocalizations, and can use either the spectral pattern of harmonics resolved by the cochlea for higher F0s or temporal envelope cues resulting from interaction between unresolved harmonics for lower F0s. The qualitative similarity of these results to human performance supports using rabbits as an animal model for studies of pitch mechanisms providing species differences in cochlear frequency selectivity and F0 range of vocalizations are taken into account.

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Uncertainty in tuning evaluation with low-register complex tones of orchestra instruments

Acta Acustica ◽

10.1051/aacus/2021045 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 49

Author(s):

Jussi Jaatinen ◽

Jukka Pätynen ◽

Tapio Lokki

Keyword(s):

Second Harmonic ◽

Principal Component ◽

Double Bass ◽

Harmonic Spectrum ◽

Reference Stimulus ◽

Dynamic Level ◽

Complex Tones ◽

Type Spectrum ◽

Listening Experiment ◽

Virtual Pitch

The relationship between perceived pitch and harmonic spectrum in complex tones is ambiguous. In this study, 31 professional orchestra musicians participated in a listening experiment where they adjusted the pitch of complex low-register successively presented tones to unison. Tones ranged from A0 to A2 (27.6–110 Hz) and were derived from acoustic instrument samples at three different dynamic levels. Four orchestra instruments were chosen as sources of the stimuli; double bass, bass tuba, contrabassoon, and contrabass clarinet. In addition, a sawtooth tone with 13 harmonics was included as a synthetic reference stimulus. The deviation of subjects’ tuning adjustments from unison tuning was greatest for the lowest tones, but remained unexpectedly high also for higher tones, even though all participants had long experience in accurate tuning. Preceding studies have proposed spectral centroid and Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory as useful predictors of the influence of the envelope of a harmonic spectrum on the perceived pitch. However, neither of these concepts were supported by our results. According to the principal component analysis of spectral differences between the presented tone pairs, the contrabass clarinet-type spectrum, where every second harmonic is attenuated, lowered the perceived pitch of a tone compared with tones with the same fundamental frequency but a different spectral envelope. In summary, the pitches of the stimuli were perceived as undefined and highly dependent on the listener, spectrum, and dynamic level. Despite their high professional level, the subjects did not perceive a common, unambiguous pitch of any of the stimuli. The contrabass clarinet-type spectrum lowered the perceived pitch.

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Different Modes of Pitch Perception and Learning-Induced Neuronal Plasticity of the Human Auditory Cortex

Neural Plasticity ◽

10.1155/np.2002.161 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 161-175 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Michael Schulte ◽

Arne Knief ◽

Annemarie Seither-Preisler ◽

Christo Pantev

Keyword(s):

Auditory Cortex ◽

Neuronal Plasticity ◽

Pitch Perception ◽

Gamma Band ◽

Base Line ◽

Band Frequency ◽

Harmonic Complex ◽

Fundamental Frequencies ◽

Complex Tones ◽

Virtual Pitch

We designed a melody perception experiment involving eight harmonic complex tones of missing fundamental frequencies (hidden auditory object) to study the short-term neuronal plasticity of the auditory cortex. In this experiment, the fundamental frequencies of the complex tones followed the beginning of the virtual melody of the tune “Frère Jacques”. The harmonics of the complex tones were chosen so that the spectral melody had an inverse contour when compared with the virtual one. Evoked magnetic fields were recorded contralaterally to the ear of stimulation from both hemispheres. After a base line measurement, the subjects were exposed repeatedly to the experimental stimuli for 1 hour a day. All subjects reported a sudden change in the perceived melody, indicating possible reorganization of the cortical processes involved in the virtual pitch formation. After this switch in perception, a second measurement was performed. Cortical sources of the evoked gamma-band activity were significantly stronger and located more medially after a switch in perception. Independent Component Analysis revealed enhanced synchronization in the gamma-band frequency range. Comparing the gamma-band activation of both hemispheres, no laterality effects were observed. The results indicate that the primary auditory cortices are involved in the process of virtual pitch perception and that their function is modifiable by laboratory manipulation.

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Amplitude Distributions of Cochlear Microphonic Response to an Acoustic Sinusoid in Noise

Journal of Speech and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.1101.63 ◽

1968 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 63-76

Author(s):

Donald C. Teas ◽

Gretchen B. Henry

Keyword(s):

Small Amplitude ◽

Basilar Membrane ◽

Spectral Composition ◽

Pass Band ◽

Cochlear Microphonic ◽

Filter Output ◽

Electronic Filter ◽

Low Pass ◽

Band Pass ◽

Instantaneous Voltage

The distributions of instantaneous voltage amplitudes in the cochlear microphonic response recorded from a small segment along the basilar membrane are described by computing amplitude histograms. Comparisons are made between the distributions for noise and for those after the addition to the noise of successively stronger sinusoids. The amplitudes of the cochlear microphonic response to 5000 Hz low-pass noise are normally distributed in both Turn I and Turn III of the guinea pig’s cochlea. The spectral composition of the microphonic from Turn I and from Turn III resembles the output of band-pass filters set at about 4000 Hz, and about 500 Hz, respectively. The normal distribution of cochlear microphonic amplitudes for noise is systematically altered by increasing the strength of the added sinusoid. A decrease of three percent in the number of small amplitude events (±1 standard deviation) in the cochlear microphonic from Turn III is seen when the rms voltage of a 500 Hz sinusoid is at −18 dB re the rms voltage of the noise (at the earphone). When the rms of the sinusoid and noise are equal, the decrease in small voltages is about 25%, but there is also an increase in the number of large voltage amplitudes. Histograms were also computed for the output of an electronic filter with a pass-band similar to Turn III of the cochlea. Strong 500 Hz sinusoids showed a greater proportion of large amplitudes in the filter output than in CM III . The data are interpreted in terms of an anatomical substrate.

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Musical Experience Shapes Neural Processing

Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie ◽

10.1024/1016-264x/a000295 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 81-86

Author(s):

Wido Nager ◽

Tilla Franke ◽

Tobias Wagner-Altendorf ◽

Eckart Altenmüller ◽

Thomas F. Münte

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Pure Tone ◽

Musical Instrument ◽

Active Listening ◽

Musical Experience ◽

Neural Processing ◽

Neural Adaptations

Abstract. Playing a musical instrument professionally has been shown to lead to structural and functional neural adaptations, making musicians valuable subjects for neuroplasticity research. Here, we follow the hypothesis that specific musical demands further shape neural processing. To test this assumption, we subjected groups of professional drummers, professional woodwind players, and nonmusicians to pure tone sequences and drum sequences in which infrequent anticipations of tones or drum beats had been inserted. Passively listening to these sequences elicited a mismatch negativity to the temporally deviant stimuli which was greater in the musicians for tone series and particularly large for drummers for drum sequences. In active listening conditions drummers more accurately and more quickly detected temporally deviant stimuli.

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