Fundamental frequency and pitch shift discrimination.

Abstract

The pitch-shift of the residue has been used as an argument for the importance of temporal fine structure in pitch perception. Discrimination of a change in fundamental frequency (F0) for harmonic complexes was compared to discriminating a change in the shifted frequency (f) in pitch-shift of the residue stimuli. Patterson and Wightman [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 59, (1976)] showed that a linear relationship exists between matched pitch and the frequency of the lowest spectral component for pitch shift of the residue stimuli (stimuli for which the spacing between adjacent spectral components is constant, but all components in the complex are shifted up or down in frequency). Obtaining pitch matches for pitch shift of the residue stimuli is a difficult task because of the ambiguous nature of the pitch shift of the residue in several conditions. Using the two discrimination experiments allows for an estimate of the slopes relating matched pitch to the frequency of the lowest component. Slopes estimated from the discrimination experiments will be compared to those obtained by the previous authors to determine if the discrimination experiments provide a valid way to predict the matched pitch of pitch-shift of the residue stimuli. [Research supported by NIDCD.]