Abstract
Over 40 years ago, Jan Schouten proposed that the pitch of complex tones is derived from the activity of peripheral auditory neurons synchronized to the temporal fine structure of the cochlea‐filtered signal [J. F. Schouten, Proc. K. Ned. Akad. Wet. 43, 991–999 (1940)]. The present study sought to evaluate Schouten's model by recording the responses of low‐frequency cochlear fibers from the cat during presentation of two (iso‐amplitude)‐component signals which, in human listeners, produce a reliable sensation of low pitch [G. F. Smoorenburg. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 48, 924–942 (1970)]. Signal frequencies, f1 and f2, arithmetically centered around the fiber's characteristic frequency (CF), conformed to the equations (1) f1 = [2n/(2n + 1)] CF; (2) f2 = [(2n + 2)/(2n + 1)] CF, where n = f1/(f2 − f2) and assumed values between 2.5 and 8.5. A large proportion of cochlear fibers synchronize to both frequency components in approximately equal measure (thus implying synchronization to a half‐wave recitified version of the signal's temporal fine structure), even when the signal components are as much as half an octave apart. These data are consistent with the basic tenor (if not the details) of the temporal fine structure model. However, it remains uncertain whether such pitch‐relevant information is utilized by higher auditory centers. [Research financially supported by NIH.]
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