Cue selection in the perception of pitch in music and speech

Abstract

Spectral shape affects pitch perception; sounds with more high energy harmonics sound higher than sounds with low energy in higher harmonics. Flatter spectral slope corresponds to "tenser" voices while steeper spectral slope correlates to "breathier" voices in speech. In string instruments, the spectral slope differentiates sul ponticello and sul tasto. Listeners were found to integrate spectral slope cues in pitch perception in speech; however, work on music focused on cross-instrument differences, glossing over cue integration within instruments with fixed-formant frequencies. Furthermore, spectral cues and F0 co-vary in human pitch production, but are largely independent in instrumental music. It remains unclear whether music processing is as integrative as speech processing. In this study, listeners were given either speech or violin stimuli with identical pitch contour pairs, and were asked to decide whether the second contour was higher or lower in pitch compared to the first. The spectral slope of each sound was manipulated to include all combinations of “breathier”/“sul tasto” and “tenser”/“sul ponticello” sounding pairs. Results show that listeners integrate spectral slope cues in pitch perception in speech and violin stimuli similarly, with similar categoricity and shift. Overall, listeners with higher musicality have more categorical responses but no differences in shift.