Pitch Judgments Research Articles

Musical rules and pitch judgment

Observed psychoacoustic events are often incompatible with musical knowledge. The point has been made particularly in the realm of pitch theory. This paper will contend that it is not the case that musical knowledge does not apply to psychophysical tasks or the musical knowledge fails to correspond with musical practice. Rather, the judgment of pitch is the result of a complex decision involving both the identification of pitch pattern and the operation of a rule‐based structural system assigning the functional values of pitches. Different tasks or task demands may assign different relative weights to the system's operators. Whatever the aesthetic merits of Western‐European tonality, the experimental study of it uncovers a powerful system of pitch organization and reveals the delicate interplay between perception and cognition. Examples will be drawn from our work on interval and melody recognition. [Work supported by Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Queen's University Advisory Research Committee.]

Some perceptual dependencies in speeded classification of vowel color and pitch.

Wood (1975) suggested that information specifying consonant identity is dependent on the earlier processing of pitch. Is vowel identification also dependent on the prior processing of pitch? In contrast with the results obtained with consonants, Kuhl (1975, 1976) reported that infants responded selectively to differences in vowel color when pitch varied but not to differences in pitch when vowel color varied. Miller (1978) has also reported that adults show mutual, symmetric interference effects in speeded classification of vowel color and pitch, In the present study, judgments of vowel color and pitch were examined in a reaction time task in order to assess the effects of the relative discriminability of vowel and pitch quality on speeded classification. In addition, we also compared the classification of isolated vowels to vowels in consonantal context. The overall results were consistent with both Kuhl’s and Miller’s earlier findings but refine our understanding of the interaction between various dimensions by showing that vowel identification is also dependent on the processing of pitch information. Such an interaction, however, becomes evident only when the processing dependencies are examined across a wide range of stimulus values for each dimension. The present findings provide additional information about the nature of processing dependencies among dimensions in speech and the methods by which such dependencies may be studied.

Pitch of the residue relative to variables for nonsimultaneous harmonics

We previously reported [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 67, S20 (1980)] that for experienced observers, pitch perception for nonsimultaneous harmonics was based on spectral frequency in quiet and fundamental frequency in noise (signal 6 dB above masked threshold). This experiment extends the initial study and examines pitch perception for nonsimultaneous harmonics as a function of intervals between harmonics and signal-to-noise ratios. As in the previous experiment, observers judged for low pitch for the nonsimultaneous harmonics of 200 Hz versus 180 Hz in a 2AFC paradym. The higher fundamental (200 Hz) stimulus had relatively lower frequencies than the lower (180 Hz) stimulus. The results indicated that pitch judgments in noise change from fundamental-based to spectral-based as the temporal separations between harmonics are increased. The perception also shifted from fundamental to spectral as the signal-to-noise ratio was increased. Further, the results indicated that some observers judge pitch by spectral cues in all nonsimultaneous harmonic conditions. Thus, there appears to be a population for which analytic (spectral) perception is dominant.

Pitch of the residue for nonsimultaneous harmonics

When three nonsimultaneous harmonics of a fundamental were presented to six trained observers at 50 dB SL, pitch perception was based on spectral frequency in quiet, but based on fundamental frequency when white noise was present (signal 6 dB above threshold in noise). Harmonics were of 40 ms duration, with 10 ms ISI. Harmonics of 200 Hz (600‐800‐1000 Hz) were paired with harmonics of 100 Hz (720‐900‐1080 Hz) for observers' 2AFC judgments of lowest pitch. Thus the stimulus with the higher fundamental (200 Hz) had relatively lower frequencies, while the stimulus with the lower fundamental had relatively higher frequencies. With close to 100% observer reliability pitch judgments in quiet were based on spectral properties and those in noise on residue. When subjects subsequently adjusted a tone to match the lowest pitch heard in such nonsimultaneous three‐component stimuli, spectral pitch matches occurred in quiet while residue pitch matches occurred in noise. When a pitch‐shift stimulus (650‐850‐1050 Hz) wa...

The Shepard demonstration revisited, again

The Shepard illusion (“auditory stairway to heaven”), in which the presentation of a cyclically repetitive sequence of complex tones composed of partials separated by octave intervals gives the illusion of continually rising pitch [Shepard, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 36, 2346–2353 (1964)] is often cited as evidence for octave equivalence in relative pitch judgments. Evidence will be presented which demonstrates that this illusion can be produced using inharmonic complex tones (e.g., tones whose partials are separated by stretched or compressed “octaves”) and, thus, octave separation of partials is not a necessary condition for producing the illusion. [Work supported, in part, by NINCDS.]

Ear dominance in perception of dichotic chords: pure tones versus tone glides.

Pitch judgments for dichotic chords composed of two pure tones often show a bias in favor of the chord-component going to one ear. This "ear-advantage for pitch" (EAP) varies between subjects, but is very stable within subject and is thought to reflect differences in spectral "sensitivity" of the two auditory pathways. The present study explored this hypothesis by examining pitch judgments of complexes composed of tones dichotically paired with frequency-varying signals. The direction and strength of EAP was first established using pure tones, then rising tone glides were introduced into the channel going to thenondominant ear. Since a glide possesses less energy at a given frequency than a pure tone of equal duration, an increase in EAP was expected. An increase in EAP was consistently observed for only one subject; three subjects showed small, variable effects; and six subjects displayed a decrease in EAP. The results suggested that factors other than relative spectral sensitivity affect observed EAP.

Some perceptual dependencies between vowel color and pitch

How to acoustic dimensions combine in speech perception? Wood [C. C. Wood, J.E.P.: HP & P, 104, 3–20 (1975)] suggested that information specifying consonants is dependent on the earlier processing of pitch because pitch judgments are unaffected by consonant variation whereas consonant judgments are slower when pitch varies. Is vowel information also dependent on the prior processing of pitch? In contrast to the results obtained with consonants, Kuhl [P. K. Kuhl and J. D. Miller, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1, 58 (1975) and P. K. Kuhl, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1, 60 (1976)] reported that infants respond selectively to vowel color when pitch varies but not to pitch when vowel varies. In this study we examined adults' judgments of vowel color and pitch in a reaction time task. Subjects classified stimuli as /i/ or /ɛ/, or as high or low pitch. Consistent with Kuhl's results, vowel judgments were unaffected by pitch variation whereas pitch judgments were slower when the vowel varied. However, this result was obtained only when the pitch difference was small (15 Hz). With a larger pitch difference (75 Hz), no interference between pitch and vowel was observed. The asymetric interference found in the first case, then, was likely due to the greater discriminability of vowel color over pitch. Thus, conclusions about perceptual dependencies in speech perception must be made cautiously as the effects may be due to the discriminability of the specific values on the dimensions under study. [Supported by NIMH.]

Bias in the judgment of the vowel loudness

As a continuation of our studies on the psychophysical bias in the judgment of vowel pitch (Chuang and Wang. ASA 60.1 and 62.1) and duration (Wang et al. ASA 60.1), this study was aimed at quantitative investigation of perceptual bias in the loudness dimension. The experimental design and the four vowels [i,e,u, and ɑ] were the same as previous studies with [ɑ] as the reference. The perceptual loudness bias differences were obtained by equalizing the syllabic speech power of the four test vowels. The mean loudness difference, based upon data gathered from 12 listeners, indicated that in reference to [ɑ], [i] was 7.1 dB, [e] was 4.5 dB, and [u] was 3.8 dB louder, respectively. These results give quantitative support to the studies of Ladefoged (1961) and Allen (1971) which showed qualitatively that with speech power normalization, the high vowels [i] and [u] were judged louder than the lower vowel [ɑ]. Furthermore, these perceptually obtained loudness differences are found to be inversely matched to the reported intensity difference of sustained vowels (Lehiste and Peterson, 1958). The negative correlation between the production intensity and the perceptual judgment of loudness in congruent with results reported in our previous pitch and duration studies. [Work supported by NSF grant BNS 76-00017 and partially supported by NS 13274.]

Pitch Judgments of Selected Successive Intervals: Is Twice as Frequent Twice as High?

Pitch Judgments of Selected Successive Intervals: Is Twice as Frequent Twice as High?

Backward recognition masking in relative pitch judgments.

Backward recognition masking refers to interference of a second masking tone with recognition of a target tone presented earlier in time. The degree of interference has been found to decrease as the length of the silent interval separating the two tones increases. These results have been interpreted as representing interference of the masking tone upon the preperceptual storage and perceptual resolution of the target. It is logically possible, however, that the masking tone does not interfere with perceptual resolution but interferes with comparison of the target to a long-term memory representation. The current research was designed to provide a critical test of this alternative hypothesis by modifying the backward recognition masking task. Subjects determined whether the masking tone was higher or lower in pitch than the target tone. The frequencies of the target and masking tones varied randomly across trials. This ensured that the task could not be performed by comparing the target to a representation in long-term memory. Nevertheless, masking was obtained in this task, arguing against the comparison argument and in favor of the perceptual resolution interpretation. Given that masking was obtained under both ipsilateral and contralateral presentation of the tones, the results argue for a central preperceptual auditory storage that holds information after the inputs from the two ears are combined in the auditory system.

Complex tonal perception through hearing aids

The influence of nonlinear distortion in hearing aids on three tone complex perception was evaluated in a comparison paridigm requiring a Same/Higher/Lower pitch judgment. Thirty normal-hearing subjects listened to recordings of the simultaneous tones 888, 1000, and 2140 Hz processed by two hearing aids and the hearing-aid test system alone. A comparison signal differed only in the center frequency, which was varied over a 40 Hz range. Hearing-aid—generated non-linear distortion improved the accuracy of the same judgments. The evidence of confusion errors for the Higher and Lower stimuli were significantly greater for the low-fidelity conditions. Cubic difference tones (CDT), identified in the hearing-aid outputs, appeared to relate to the direction of the listener confusions. The results for the two hearing aids were essentially the same in spite of substantial difference in amounts of nonlinear distortion. [Work supported by VA.]

Anchoring effects on a synthetic consonant continuum

Anchoring effects on several acoustic continua were studied by manipulating the probabilities of occurrence of end-point stimuli. Two six-step double continua were constructed by simultaneously varying both the initial formant transitions of a CV syllable and either its pitch or its vowel. Thus, the first continuum ranged from low-pitched /bae/ (114 Hz) to high-pitched /dae/ (150 Hz); the second from /bae/ to /dɛ/. Two random-order test tapes were prepared for each double continuum: in one (control) all seven stimuli occurred equally often, in the other (anchor) an end-point stimulus (either /bae/ — “low” or /bae/ occurred four times as often as each of the other six stimuli. Nine subjects listened to each tape twice, once judging the initial consonant of each syllable (/b/, /d/), once judging either its pitch (low, high) or its vowel (/ae/, /ɛ/). On the first test, the mean category boundary was significantly shifted toward the anchoring stimulus on the pitch judgment, but not on the consonant judgment. On the second test, the mean category boundary was significantly shifted toward the anchor stimulus on both vowel and consonant judgments. Judgments of synthetic consonants are thus not always immune to the psychophysical effects of anchoring. [Work supported by NICHD.]

Effect of auditory fatigue on frequency discrimination

An attempt was made to demonstrate changes in frequency discrimination following a 3-min exposure to a pure tone. Thirty subjects adjusted a variable tone to be just higher or just lower in pitch than a standard frequency. These judgments were made prior to and following exposure to either a 250-Hz or a 4-kHz tone. Three separate standard frequencies were used with each of the exposure tones. When 250 Hz was the fatiguing frequency, pitch judgments were made using 180, 250, and 350 Hz as standards. For the 4-kHz exposure, the standard frequencies were 2.8, 4, and 5.6 kHz. In addition to pitch judgments, the experimental design produced estimates of threshold sensitivity for the test tone. A complete control run was made for each exposure-standard frequency combination. As was the case with previous research in this area, this experimental procedure was unable to show any appreciable effect on frequency discrimination following pure tone exposure. The experiment did produce an interesting secondary observation. There was a distinct asymmetry in the pitch judgments above and below the standard frequency. The asymmetry was particularly noticeable when the standard frequency was 5.6 kHz.

Pitch of acoustically altered whispered vowels

The present authors have hypothesized that the perceived pitch characteristics of whispered vowels are related to their second formant frequency [McGlone and Manning, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 57, 569(A) (1975)]. This assumption was based on the rank-ordering of vowels by judges from highest pitch to the lowest pitch which corresponded directly with the frequencies of F2 of the speakers. To further test the above hypothesis, F2 of vowels/I, i, u, c, æ/ in whispered hV syllables were electronically filtered from the speech signal These altered signals were played in pairs to a group of judges who simply indicated which of the pair had the highest pitch. The vowel quality of the speech sample disappeared but pitch judgments were possible. The order of pitch differed considerably from the unaltered condition. F2 does appear to influence the pitch perception of vowels.

Recognition masking of auditory lateralization and pitch judgments.

Two experiments determined backward and forward recognition masking functions in a lateralization task. Observers were presented with a 20-msec pure tone that differed in intensity to the two ears. The task was to indicate whether the tone came from the right or left. A second backward-masking tone interfered with the lateralization of the first test tone if it was presented within 180–250 msec of the first tone presentation. In contrast, a forward-masking tone had to be presented within 80 msec of the test-tone presentation in order to interfere with lateralization of the test tone. The results also showed that observers tended to lateralize the test sound in the direction of the masking sound if the test and masking sounds occurred within a 100-msec period. In a third experiment, subjects were required to identify a test tone as high or low in pitch in a recognition masking task. Although pitch judgments showed as much or more backward masking than lateralization judgments, significantly less forward masking was found in the pitch judgment task. Relative to lateralization judgments, observers showed a smaller tendency to judge the pitch of the test tone in the direction of the pitch of the masking sound. Subject Classification: [43]65.75, [43]65.54, [43]65.62, [43]65.58.

SPEED AND ACCURACY OF ABSOLUTE PITCH JUDGMENTS: SOME LATTER‐DAY RESULTS

ABSTRACTNine subjects, 5 of whom claimed absolute pitch (AP) ability (4 from childhood, 1 by self‐training) were given a pitch judgment task in which they had to strike notes on the piano as rapidly as possible to match randomized tape‐recorded piano notes. Stimulus set sizes were 64, 16, or 4 consecutive semitones, or 7 diatonic notes of a designated octave. A control task involved motor movements to notes announced in advance, with the effect that set size was 1. Accuracy, measured on the basis of deviations of responses from targets, significantly differentiated AP from NAP (non‐AP) subjects at all set sizes except the control task. For both groups, accuracy increased as set size decreased. Decision times, measured as that part of total response time before a movement to the response note began, decreased as set size decreased, but did not differentiate AP and NAP subjects. The performance of the trained AP subject was not distinguishable from that of the remaining AP subjects either in accuracy or decision time. Results are discussed in terms of a two‐factor theory of AP ability whereby NAP subjects use only relative tone height as the basis of judgment but AP subjects also use standards of tone chroma stored in long‐term memory. The abnormally high channel capacities and rates of information gain for AP subjects are interpreted on the basis of transmission of information in two channels, whereas NAP subjects transmit information in only one channel.

Pitch of acoustically altered whispered vowels

The present authors have hypothesized that the perceived pitch characteristics of whispered vowels are related to their second formant frequency [McGlone and Manning, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 57, S69(A) (1975)]. This assumption was based on the rank-ordering of vowels by judges from highest pitch to the lowest pitch which corresponded directly with the frequencies of F2 of the speakers. To further test the above hypothesis, F2 of vowels /ɪ i, u, ɔ, æ/ in whispered hV syllables were electronically filtered from the speech signal. These altered signals were played in pairs to a group of judges who simply indicated which of the pair had the highest pitch. The vowel quality of the speech sample disappeared but pitch judgments were possible. The order of pitch differed considerably from the unaltered condition. F2 does appear to influence the pitch perception of vowels.

A Naive Minority of One and Deliberate Majority Mismatches of Tonal Stimuli

Individual conformity to deliberately erroneous majority judgments of pitch and loudness was investigated. A group of 136 university music students, randomly assigned to experimental or control groups, evaluated 18 pitch or loudness items by publicly indicating, after hearing responses of four confederates, which of three tones matched a standard. Results included a .30 overall conformity rate in the experimental group for pitch and a .49 rate for loudness. Comparisons between groups and intrapersonal comparisons generally are highly significant. It was concluded that music students may defy their sensory inputs and yield to erroneous peer judgments. Results of other studies suggesting greater conformity with more ambiguous stimuli are partially confirmed.

A Naive Minority of One and Deliberate Majority Mismatches of Tonal Stimuli

Individual conformity to deliberately erroneous majority judgments of pitch and loudness was investigated. A group of 136 university music students, randomly assigned to experimental or control groups, evaluated 18 pitch or loudness items by publicly indicating, after hearing responses of four confederates, which of three tones matched a standard. Results included a .30 overall conformity rate in the experimental group for pitch and a .49 rate for loudness. Comparisons between groups and intrapersonal comparisons generally are highly significant. It was concluded that music students may defy their sensory inputs and yield to erroneous peer judgments. Results of other studies suggesting greater conformity with more ambiguous stimuli are partially confirmed.

Anchor effects with biased probability of occurrence in absolute judgment of pitch.

Anchor effects with biased probability of occurrence in absolute judgment of pitch.