Pitch perception of concurrent high-frequency complex tones

Abstract

Accurate pitch perception is possible for harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies (F0s) in the musical range (e.g., 1.4 kHz) but with all harmonics beyond the putative limits of phase locking. However, it is unknown whether pitch perception in more complex scenarios, such as with concurrent complex tones, is possible using these stimuli. To address this question, we measured (1) F0 difference limens (F0DLs) and (2) target-to-masker ratios (TMRs) required to detect a fixed F0 difference in a mixture of complex tones with low F0s (∼280 Hz) or high F0s (∼1400 Hz). The target tones were filtered to ensure that in the high-F0 case, only harmonics beyond the limits of phase locking were present. Pitch perception was poorer for isolated high-F0 tones than for isolated low-F0 tones and adding a masker complex tone with a geometrically centered F0 impaired performance for both high-F0 and low-F0 tones. The TMRs required to achieve good performance in the presence of two complex tone maskers were higher for high-F0 tones than for low-F0 tones. The results should help determine whether different mechanisms underlie the perception of combinations of complex tones at low and high frequencies. [Work supported by Grants NIH R01 DC005216 and NSF NRT-UtB1734815.]Accurate pitch perception is possible for harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies (F0s) in the musical range (e.g., 1.4 kHz) but with all harmonics beyond the putative limits of phase locking. However, it is unknown whether pitch perception in more complex scenarios, such as with concurrent complex tones, is possible using these stimuli. To address this question, we measured (1) F0 difference limens (F0DLs) and (2) target-to-masker ratios (TMRs) required to detect a fixed F0 difference in a mixture of complex tones with low F0s (∼280 Hz) or high F0s (∼1400 Hz). The target tones were filtered to ensure that in the high-F0 case, only harmonics beyond the limits of phase locking were present. Pitch perception was poorer for isolated high-F0 tones than for isolated low-F0 tones and adding a masker complex tone with a geometrically centered F0 impaired performance for both high-F0 and low-F0 tones. The TMRs required to achieve good performance in the presence of two complex tone maskers were higher...