Pitch Of Tone Research Articles

Adult Cochlear Implant Users Are Able to Discriminate Basic Tonal Features in Musical Patterns: Evidence From Event-related Potentials.

Measurement of electrophysiological correlates of discrimination abilities of basic musical features in pre- and postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant (CI) users. Electroencephalographic study. Comparison between CI users and matched normal hearing controls. Thirty-six hearing impaired adults using a cochlear implant for 4 to 15 months. Profound hearing impairment was acquired either before (N = 12) or after language acquisition (N = 17). Seven patients suffered from a single-sided deafness. Presentation of auditory stimuli consisting of musical four tone standard patterns and deviant patterns varying with regard to tone pitch, timbre, intensity, and rhythm of two different degrees. Analysis of electrophysiological, event-related mismatch responses. Cochlear implant users elicited significant mismatch responses on most deviant features. Comparison to controls revealed significantly smaller mismatch negativity amplitudes. Except for one parameter (pitch) there were no reliable differences between pre- and postlingually deafened CI users. Despite a highly reduced complexity of neural auditory stimulation by the cochlear implant device in comparison to the physiological cochlear input, CI users exhibit cortical discriminatory responses to relatively subtle basic tonal alterations.

More about monaural noise edge pitch

Lowpass noise with a sharp spectral cutoff generates a monaural noise edge pitch (MNEP) that listeners match with a sine tone having a frequency somewhat below the noise cutoff frequency (negative pitch shift). If the MNEP is a proper musical pitch, listeners should be able to identify musical intervals made using only the MNEP stimulus. Open-set MNEP experiments in the edge-frequency range of 600-2400 Hz found that four out of four listeners with musical training correctly identified octaves, fifths, fourths, and major thirds, proving that the MNEP is a musical pitch. The MNEP can be heard for edge frequencies at least as low as 100 Hz, but the negative pitch shift becomes larger than a semitone, consistent with a timing model of the MNEP having a fixed integration time. If the MNEP reflects the expected quasi-periodic timing response of the auditory system to a sharp spectral edge, the pitch should become inaudible if the edge frequency becomes too high for neural synchrony—expected to be about 5000 Hz. Sine tone pitch matching experiments showed that such a limit clearly applies for most listeners, but less clearly for others. [Work supported by the USAFOSR.]

The threat of a support surface translation affects anticipatory postural control

This study examined how postural threat in the form of a potential perturbation affects an individual's ability to perform a heel raise. Seventeen adults completed three conditions: i) low threat, where participants performed a heel raise in response to a “go” tone, ii) high threat, where participants either heard the same “go” tone, for which they performed a heel raise, or experienced a support surface translation in the medio-lateral direction that disturbed their balance, and iii) choice reaction time task, where participants either completed a heel raise in response to the same “go” tone or a toe raise in response to a lower pitched tone. For all heel raise trials, anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) were quantified from center of pressure (COP) recordings and electromyographic (EMG) activity from the tibialis anterior (TA) and soleus (SOL). Results indicated that participants exhibited larger APAs, as reflected by the greater backward COP displacement (p=0.038) and velocity (p=0.022) as well as a larger TA EMG amplitude (p=0.045), during the high threat condition. During the execution phase of the heel raise, an earlier (p=0.014) and larger (p=0.041) SOL EMG activation were observed during the high threat condition. These results contrast with previous findings of reduced APAs when the postural threat was evoked through changes in surface height. Therefore, the characteristics of the postural threat must be considered to isolate the effects of threat on anticipatory movement control.

Frequency discrimination in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a highly vocal New World primate species that has emerged in recent years as a promising model system for studies of auditory and vocal processing. Our recent studies have examined perceptual mechanisms related to the pitch of harmonic complex tones in this species. However, no previous psychoacoustic work has measured marmosets' frequency discrimination abilities for pure tones across a broad frequency range. Here we systematically examined frequency difference limens (FDLs), which measure the minimum discriminable frequency difference between two pure tones, in marmosets across most of their hearing range. Results show that marmosets' FDLs are comparable to other New World primates, with lowest values in the frequency range of ∼3.5–14 kHz. This region of lowest FDLs corresponds with the region of lowest hearing thresholds in this species measured in our previous study and also with the greatest concentration of spectral energy in the major types of marmoset vocalizations. These data suggest that frequency discrimination in the common marmoset may have evolved to match the hearing sensitivity and spectral characteristics of this species’ vocalizations.

Study on the Confidence-Parameter Estimation through Speech Signal

The human voice is easy method in the information transmission. And it also includes variety of information. This voice information includes the means and also includes other information. The voice characteristics are individually depending on utterance speed, pitch tone, vocal organ features and gender. And voice features also include further information such as emotions, health, and aging, etc. that are able to get by analyzing the basic parameter of speech signal. .In modern society, it is important to focus on Received (May 6, 2016), Review Result (May 20, 2016) Accepted (May 27, 2016), Published (July 31, 2016) 156-743 Dept. Information & Telecommunication Engr. SoongSil Univ., Sangdo-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea email: pphw@ssu.ac.kr *Corresponding author: Hyung-Woo Park, Ph.D. 156-743 Dept. Information & Telecommunication Engr. SoongSil Univ., Sangdo-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea email: slayernights@ssu.ac.kr 156-743 Dept. Information & Telecommunication Engr. SoongSil Univ., Sangdo-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea email: mjbae@ssu.ac.kr Study on the Confidence-Parameter Estimation through Speech Signal Copyright c 2016 HSST 102 the interpersonal relationships how does people speech to the voice characteristics. And, the voice is the factors that determines the first impression between relationship people, that the ratio is around 47%. Confidence in the voice is accompanied by a positive impact of such first impressions change. In this paper, we collect and analyse the voice for confidence people by parameterizing. In addition, we test also MOS in progress. And people are practicing with this parameter extraction and vocalization of the behavioral changes was to get a sense of the confidence voice.

Place dependent stimulation rates improve pitch perception in cochlear implantees with single-sided deafness

In normal hearing, the pitch of an acoustic tone can theoretically be encoded by either the place of stimulation in the cochlea or the corresponding rate of vibration. Thus spectral attributes and temporal fine structure of an acoustic signal are naturally correlated. Cochlear implants (CIs), neural prosthetic devices that restore hearing in the profoundly hearing impaired, currently disregard this mechanism; electrical stimulation is provided at fixed electrode positions with default place independent stimulation rate assignments. This does not account for individual cochlear encoding depending on electrode array placement, variations in insertion depth, and the proximity to nerve fibers. Encoding pitch in such manner delivers limited tonal information. Consequently, music appraisal in CI users is often rated cacophonic while speech perception in quiet is close to normal in top performers. We hypothesize that this limitation in electric stimulation is at least partially due to the mismatch between frequency and place encoding in CIs. In the present study, we determined individual electrode locations by analysis of cochlear radiographic images obtained after surgery and calculated place dependent stimulation rates according to models of the normal tonotopic function. Pitch matching in CI users with single-sided deafness shows that place dependent stimulation rates allow thus far unparalleled restoration of tonotopic pitch perception. Collapsed data of matched pitch frequencies as a function of calculated electrical stimulation rate were well fitted by linear regression (R2 = 0.878). Sound processing strategies incorporating place dependent stimulation rates are expected to improve pitch perception in CI users.

Activation in the Right Inferior Parietal Lobule Reflects the Representation of Musical Structure beyond Simple Pitch Discrimination.

Pitch discrimination tasks typically engage the superior temporal gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus. It is currently unclear whether these regions are equally involved in the processing of incongruous notes in melodies, which requires the representation of musical structure (tonality) in addition to pitch discrimination. To this aim, 14 participants completed two tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, one in which they had to identify a pitch change in a series of non-melodic repeating tones and a second in which they had to identify an incongruous note in a tonal melody. In both tasks, the deviants activated the right superior temporal gyrus. A contrast between deviants in the melodic task and deviants in the non-melodic task (melodic > non-melodic) revealed additional activity in the right inferior parietal lobule. Activation in the inferior parietal lobule likely represents processes related to the maintenance of tonal pitch structure in working memory during pitch discrimination.

The Sounds of Desaturation: A Survey of Commercial Pulse Oximeter Sonifications.

The pulse oximeter has been a standard of care medical monitor for >25 years. Most manufacturers include a variable-pitch pulse tone in their pulse oximeters. Research has shown that the acoustic properties of variable-pitch tones are not standardized. In this study, we surveyed the properties of pulse tones from 21 pulse oximeters, consisting of 1 to 4 instruments of 11 different models and 8 brands. Our goals were to fully document the sounds over saturation values 0% to 100%, test whether tones become quieter at low saturation values, and create a public repository of pulse oximeter recordings for future use. A convenience sample of commercial pulse oximeters in use at one hospital was studied. Audiovisual recordings of each pulse oximeter's display and sounds were taken while it monitored a simulator starting at a saturation of 100% and slowly decreasing in 1% steps until the saturation reached 0%. Recorded pulse tones were analyzed for spectral frequency and total power. Audio files for each pulse oximeter containing 100 pulse tones, one at every saturation value, were created for inclusion in the repository. Recordings containing 509 to 1053 pulse tones were made from the 21 pulse oximeters. Fundamental frequencies at 100% saturation ranged from 479 to 921 Hz, and fundamental frequencies at 1% saturation ranged from 38 to 404 Hz. The pulse tones from all but one model pulse oximeter contained harmonics. Pulse tone step sizes were linear in 6 models and logarithmic in 6 models. Only 6 pulse oximeter models decreased the pulse tone pitch at every decrease in saturation; all others decreased the pitch at only select saturation thresholds. Five pulse oximeter models stopped decreasing pitch altogether once the saturation reached a certain lower threshold. Pulse tone power (perceived as loudness) changed with saturation level for all pulse oximeters, increasing above baseline as saturation decreased from 100% and decreasing to levels below baseline at low saturation values. Current pulse oximeters use different techniques to address the competing goals of (1) using pitch steps that are large enough to be readily perceived, and (2) conveying saturation values from 0 to 100 within a limited range of sound frequencies. From a clinical perspective, 2 techniques for increasing perceivability (increasing the frequency range and using ratio step sizes) have no drawback, but 2 techniques (not changing pitch at every saturation change and using a lower saturation cutoff) do have potential clinical drawbacks. On the basis of our findings, we have made suggestions for clinicians and manufacturers.

Learning Pitch with STDP: A Computational Model of Place and Temporal Pitch Perception Using Spiking Neural Networks.

Pitch perception is important for understanding speech prosody, music perception, recognizing tones in tonal languages, and perceiving speech in noisy environments. The two principal pitch perception theories consider the place of maximum neural excitation along the auditory nerve and the temporal pattern of the auditory neurons’ action potentials (spikes) as pitch cues. This paper describes a biophysical mechanism by which fine-structure temporal information can be extracted from the spikes generated at the auditory periphery. Deriving meaningful pitch-related information from spike times requires neural structures specialized in capturing synchronous or correlated activity from amongst neural events. The emergence of such pitch-processing neural mechanisms is described through a computational model of auditory processing. Simulation results show that a correlation-based, unsupervised, spike-based form of Hebbian learning can explain the development of neural structures required for recognizing the pitch of simple and complex tones, with or without the fundamental frequency. The temporal code is robust to variations in the spectral shape of the signal and thus can explain the phenomenon of pitch constancy.

Harmonic context influences pitch class equivalence judgments through gestalt and congruency effects

The context in which a stimulus is presented shapes the way it is processed. This effect has been studied extensively in the field of visual perception. Our understanding of how context affects the processing of auditory stimuli is, however, rather limited. Western music is primarily built on melodies (succession of pitches) typically accompanied by chords (harmonic context), which provides a natural template for the study of context effects in auditory processing. Here, we investigated whether pitch class equivalence judgments of tones are affected by the harmonic context within which the target tones are embedded. Nineteen musicians and 19 non-musicians completed a change detection task in which they were asked to determine whether two successively presented target tones, heard either in isolation or with a chordal accompaniment (same or different chords), belonged to the same pitch class. Both musicians and non-musicians were most accurate when the chords remained the same, less so in the absence of chordal accompaniment, and least when the chords differed between both target tones. Further analysis investigating possible mechanisms underpinning these effects of harmonic context on task performance revealed that both a change in gestalt (change in either chord or pitch class), as well as incongruency between change in target tone pitch class and change in chords, led to reduced accuracy and longer reaction times. Our results demonstrate that, similarly to visual processing, auditory processing is influenced by gestalt and congruency effects.

The effect of inharmonicity in piano tones

This presentation will review research conducted to determine the effect of inharmonic partials on the pitch of piano tones [JASA, 117, 3268–3272 (2005)]. Synthetic piano tones were created based on recordings of an upright piano. One set of tones were made to have inharmonic partials that matched the partial frequencies of the piano tone recording, whereas another set of tones consisted of harmonic partials. Listeners compared a synthetic, inharmonic piano tone to a set of synthetic, harmonic piano tone with varying fundamental frequencies. They were asked to select the harmonic tone whose pitch best matched that of the inharmonic tone. The pitch of the inharmonic tones was perceived to be sharp relative to the harmonic tones (sharp in terms of the comparison of their respective fundamental frequencies).

Interaction between aspiration and tonal pitch in Weihai Chinese

This paper considers the questions of whether, how, and by what mechanism the aspiration of voiceless stops in the syllable onset affects the pitch (F0) of lexical tone in a tone language. The literature on this topic is at odds with itself. Lai et al. [“The raising effect of aspirated prevocalic consonants on F0 in Taiwanese,” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on East Asian Linguistics (2009)] review the history of conflicting results, with some studies reporting F0 lowering after aspirated stops, and some reporting F0 raising. Here is provided another battery of findings from another tonal dialect, Weihai Chinese. Using data from seven monodialectal female speakers, no effect of aspiration is found on tonal F0 following bilabial or alveolar stops, but a strong significant lowering effect was observed following the velar aspirated stops. A second issue addressed here has had almost nothing published about it, viz., what is the converse effect of the lexical tone pitch upon the aspiration time (VOT) of the onset stops. It was found that, in general, high-beginning tones correlated with shorter voice onset times in all stop onsets.

Discourse Elements in English Academic Discourse

This paper presents a study of discourse elements in spoken academic discourse – a lecture – and identifies their specificities. The study seeks to identify discourse elements in a wide body of research material; to study structural, functional and pragmatic features of discourse elements in terms of the implementation of the intentions of the speaker; to identify from the auditory analysis any prosodic features of discourse elements. Discourse elements are specifically defined from the point of view of their pragmatics: the intention of the speaker influences the language of the lecture and the way in which ideas are connected with words. The study on discourse elements included several stages. Research material consisted of audio recordings of Philology lectures to students studying English as a foreign language by three native speakers of English (General American standard of pronunciation), all of whom are professors at American colleges and universities. In total, 6 lectures were recorded; they formed a wide body of research material lasting 7 hours 33 minutes. This wide body of research material consisted of 2 306 linguistic facts, i.e. discourse elements in context. From these, 150 fragments containing various discourse elements were then chosen to form a narrow body of research material lasting 40 minutes. The phonetic research consisted of auditory analysis: dividing the fragments of discourses into syntagms; defining the boundaries of syntagms; specifying pitch movement, tone level and type of scale; using perceptual gradations of each prosodic feature, etc. Prosodic marking was carried out in accordance with the method of notation adopted at the Department of English Phonetics at Moscow State Teacher Training University (1997). Scaling enabled the classification and sorting of all the studied elements (discourse elements). The authors used the following types of scales: nominative, ordinal and interval. Structural analysis proved that discourse elements have different structure and may be one-word elements and predicative phrases S+P incorporated into the structure of the academic discourse. All discourse elements can be divided into two large groups – connecting elements (connectors) and pragmatic elements. The results of the research show that the studied elements differ structurally and can perform various functions. The functions of the discourse elements, their structure, intentions of the speaker and also their position in the phrase determine their prosodic features.

Harmony Generation Driven by a Perceptually Motivated Tonal Interval Space

We present D'accord, a generative music system for creating harmonically compatible accompaniments of symbolic and musical audio inputs with any number of voices, instrumentation, and complexity. The main novelty of our approach centers on offering multiple ranked solutions between a database of pitch configurations and a given musical input based on tonal pitch relatedness and consonance indicators computed in a perceptually motivated Tonal Interval Space. Furthermore, we detail a method to estimate the key of symbolic and musical audio inputs based on attributes of the space, which underpins the generation of key-related pitch configurations. The system is controlled via an adaptive interface implemented for Ableton Live, MAX, and Pure Data, which facilitates music creation for users regardless of music expertise and simultaneously serves as a performance, entertainment, and learning tool. We perform a threefold evaluation of D'accord, which assesses the level of accuracy of our key-finding algorithm, the user enjoyment of generated harmonic accompaniments, and the usability and learnability of the system.

Absolute Pitch and Exquisite Rightness of Tone

F. R. Leavis knew Ludwig Wittgenstein from the nineteen twenties to the time of Wittgenstein’s death in 1951. But the nature of their encounter leaves the impression of what Michael Bell has called “potentially important unfinished business in their intellectual nonrelationship.” Their shared suspicion of theory might be thought to have aligned them in their judgments and in their respective conceptions of philosophy and literature; yet such alignment as there was scarcely prevented misunderstanding. A more important potential connection is to be found, however, in their ideas about language, especially in terms of its relation to imagination and maturity of judgment.

Arapaho Historical Morphology

Although the phonological innovations that derive Arapaho from Proto-Algonquian are extensive, the historical origins of Arapaho inflectional morphology can be traced in almost all cases. Some new morphological categories and patterns have emerged, and some functions of inherited material have changed. The data are drawn from grammars, early texts, and dictionaries, supplemented by sound recordings and fieldwork. The examination of data from these varied sources in the context of historical analysis sheds light on synchronic Arapaho phonology, including pitch accent, tone, and syllabification. Improved transcriptions of paradigmatically related forms make possible an historical explanation of the major accentual patterns.

The musical space: A sketch for a broader musicological-semiotical discussion

The subject of this paper is an examination of the analytical competences of musical semiotics and prolongation analysis applied to the organisation of the musical space in the music of the 20th century. By means of presenting one of the possible ways of organizing the musical space - the organisation of pitches and registers - one can derive the synthesis of Eero Tarasti's semiotics of the musical space and certain segments of prolongation analysis. Starting from the assumption that the organisation of the musical space is the key determinant of the music of the 20th century (Masnikosa, 2010: 242), I will argue that the musical space has its 'stronghold' in the works of European high modernism. By confronting Tarasti's model of the musical space with some segments of prolongation analysis (more precisely, with the theory of harmony by Olli Vâisâlâ and tonal pitch spaces by Fred Lerdahl, with the addition of the theory of musical forces by Steve Larson), I will try to show how the organisation of the musical space can be implied in the analysis of Iannis Xenakis's (1922-2001) work Metastaseis (1953/4).

There is also a story in Lutosławski: Narrative archetypes in the first movement of Witold Lutosławski's second symphony

Narrativity in music is seldom connected to the compositions based on aleatoric procedures and the use of sound masses. Yet, it can be demonstrated that the first movement of Witold Lutoslawski's Second Symphony projects a meaningful set of relations which is later called into question and reconfigured, thus meeting at least some of the conditions for narratological approach. The attention is focused on the tone pitch parameter and in that sense it can be noticed that the movement is founded on the alternation of twelve-note aggregate and symmetrical, all-combinatorial hexachord 012678. This description suggests invariance, the lack of directed movement, since both tonal arrays are characterised by a high level of entropy. In spite of this, there is a clear effort to achieve a directed movement, as a result of the procedures used to organise tonal pitches, and, especially, as a result of the treatment of hexachords. The paper will investigate how the flow of events in this movement can be related to the system of mythos - the archetypal narrative categories - as were first defined by the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye, and adjusted for musical narrative by Byron Almen. The system is based on the intersection of the two fundamental opposites: defeat/victory and order/disorder, resulting in four categories: comedy, romance, irony/satire and tragedy. No matter how paradoxical it may seem, it is the abovementioned entropy that can be considered as the initial order, and its disorder is achieved by attempts to establish directed movement. The ambivalence of archetypal categories and their interweaving is not uncommon in the narrative process. Therefore, the possibility of various interpretations of narrative trajectory will be discussed.

The influence of timbre of string instruments and piano on successful transcription of one-part and multi-part melodic dictation at musical studies

The paper analyses the influence and contribution of tone colour (timbre) of various musical instruments on successful notation of one-part and multi-part melodic dictation in solfeggio teaching during musical studies. An experimental pilot research tested the impact of tone colour of the most prevalent teaching tools - the piano, on the one hand, and the timbre of string instruments on the other - on the accuracy of identification of tone pitches, and therefore the accuracy of transcribing musical dictation. The research was based on the experiment with parallel groups on a sample of eighteen students of the second and fourth year of Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac. The students were divided into two groups - control and experimental group in each generation. The pilot research results prove that the use of timbre of string instruments provides greater accuracy of solving tests - writing multi-part (two-part and three-part) melodic dictation.

Non-Gaussian distributions of melodic intervals in music: The Lévy-stable approximation

The analysis of structural patterns in music is of interest in order to increase our fundamental understanding of music, as well as for devising algorithms for computer-generated music, so called algorithmic composition. Musical melodies can be analyzed in terms of a “music walk” between the pitches of successive tones in a notescript, in analogy with the “random walk” model commonly used in physics. We find that the distribution of melodic intervals between tones can be approximated with a Lévy-stable distribution. Since music also exibits self-affine scaling, we propose that the “music walk” should be modelled as a Lévy motion. We find that the Lévy motion model captures basic structural patterns in classical as well as in folk music.