Pitch Perception Research Articles

Experimental study of the effects of the long chimney of a closed tonehole on the sound of a bassoon.

The bassoon has side holes a few tens of millimeters long, much longer than in other woodwinds. When they are closed, the "quarter-wave" resonances of these "chimneys" create short circuits in parallel with the bore. At these resonance frequencies, near 2 kHz-within the sensitive range of hearing-it is expected that the waves will not propagate beyond the chimney, affecting both the input impedance and the radiated sound. Using parametric studies with varying chimney lengths, these effects on impedance and radiated sound are measured for a French bassoon and a simplified conical model instrument. The effects are clear on the model instrument, especially when several chimneys have equal length. For the bassoon, the passive filter effect remains, but its importance in the sound is blurred due to changes in the oscillation regime and in the directivity, as simulations confirmed. The effect is audible under laboratory conditions, but on the same order of magnitude as the spatial level variations due to the directivity. It is, therefore, unlikely that the difference in timbre between the French and the German bassoon is mainly due to longer tonehole chimneys.

No Heightened Musical Pitch Weighting For Tone Language Speakers in Early Childhood

Numerous studies suggest that speakers of some tone languages show advantages in musical pitch processing compared to non-tone language speakers. A recent study in adults (Jasmin et al., 2021) suggests that in addition to heightened pitch sensitivity, tone language speakers weight pitch information more strongly than other auditory cues (amplitude, duration) in both linguistic and nonlinguistic settings compared to non-tone language speakers. The current study asks whether pitch upweighting is evident in early childhood. To test this, two groups of 3- to 5-year-old children—tone-language speakers (n = 48), a group previously shown to have a perceptual advantage in musical pitch tasks (Creel et al., 2018), and non-tone-language speakers (n = 48)—took part in a musical “word learning” task. Children associated two cartoon characters with two brief musical phrases differing in both musical instrument and contour. If tone language speakers weight pitch more strongly, cue conflict trials should show stronger pitch responding than for non-tone speakers. In contrast to both adult speakers’ stronger pitch weighting and child and adult pitch perception advantages, tone-language-speaking children did not show greater weighting of pitch information than non-tone-language speaking children. This suggests a slow developmental course for pitch reweighting, contrasting with apparent early emergence of pitch sensitivity.

Altered binaural hearing in pre-ataxic and ataxic mutation carriers of spinocerebellar ataxia type 3

Brainstem degeneration is a prominent feature of spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3), involving structures that execute binaural synchronization with microsecond precision. As a consequence, auditory processing may deteriorate during the course of disease. We tested whether the binaural “Huggins pitch” effect is suitable to study the temporal precision of brainstem functioning in SCA3 mutation carriers. We expected that they would have difficulties perceiving Huggins pitch at high frequencies, and that they would show attenuated neuromagnetic responses to Huggins pitch. The upper limit of Huggins pitch perception was psychoacoustically determined in 18 pre-ataxic and ataxic SCA3 mutation carriers and in 18 age-matched healthy controls. Moreover, the cortical N100 response following Huggins pitch onset was acquired by means of magnetoencephalography (MEG). MEG recordings were analyzed using dipole source modeling and comprised a monaural pitch condition and a no-pitch condition with simple binaural correlation changes. Compared with age-matched controls, ataxic but not pre-ataxic SCA3 mutation carriers had significantly lower frequency limits up to which Huggins pitch could be heard. Listeners with lower frequency limits also showed diminished MEG responses to Huggins pitch, but not in the two control conditions. Huggins pitch is a promising tool to assess brainstem functioning in ataxic SCA3 patients. Future studies should refine the psychophysiological setup to capture possible performance decrements also in pre-ataxic mutation carriers. Longitudinal observations will be needed to prove the potential of the assessment of Huggins pitch as a biomarker to track brainstem functioning during the disease course in SCA3.

Cetacean evoked potential audiometry by stranding networks enables more rapid accumulation of hearing information in stranded odontocetes

Knowing the hearing range and sensitivity of a marine mammal is fundamental to determining its potential for being impacted by ocean noise. Enabling stranding responders to perform hearing tests on stranded odontocetes is the most likely means by which most odontocete species will be tested and by which population-level variability in hearing will be determined. A portable auditory evoked potential (AEP) system was modified for use by stranding response teams and optimised to test odontocete hearing. Stranding responders were trained on the system and deployed it to strandings from 2010–2013. Eighteen partial or complete audiograms from common dolphins (n = 15) and Atlantic white-sided dolphins (n = 3) were obtained. Both species demonstrated typically delphinid audiograms with upper frequency limits of hearing between 113–160kHz; however, the region of best sensitivity in the Atlantic white-sided dolphin (28–56kHz) was 18–28 dB less sensitive than that of the common dolphin. A single common dolphin presented with severe hearing loss consistent with presbycusis in delphinids, but with undefined etiology. The number of audiograms obtained during the study greatly increases our knowledge about hearing in these species, neither of which are common to managed care facilities. In the case of the common dolphin, the number of animals tested allows a first estimate of population-level variability. Continued use of AEP systems by stranding responders will expedite the collection of audiometric information for previously untested species and permit sufficient sample sizes to determine population-level variability in the hearing of tested species.

The Resilience of the Phonological Network May Have Implications for Developmental and Acquired Disorders.

A central tenet of network science states that the structure of the network influences processing. In this study of a phonological network of English words we asked: how does damage alter the network structure (Study 1)? How does the damaged structure influence lexical processing (Study 2)? How does the structure of the intact network "protect" processing with a less efficient algorithm (Study 3)? In Study 1, connections in the network were randomly removed to increasingly damage the network. Various measures showed the network remained well-connected (i.e., it is resilient to damage) until ~90% of the connections were removed. In Study 2, computer simulations examined the retrieval of a set of words. The performance of the model was positively correlated with naming accuracy by people with aphasia (PWA) on the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT) across four types of aphasia. In Study 3, we demonstrated another way to model developmental or acquired disorders by manipulating how efficiently activation spread through the network. We found that the structure of the network "protects" word retrieval despite decreases in processing efficiency; words that are relatively easy to retrieve with efficient transmission of priming remain relatively easy to retrieve with less efficient transmission of priming. Cognitive network science and computer simulations may provide insight to a wide range of speech, language, hearing, and cognitive disorders.

Characterization of the superior olivary complex of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in comparison to humans

The superior olivary complex (SOC) is a collection of nuclei in the hindbrain of mammals with numerous roles in hearing, including localization of sound sources in the environment, encoding temporal and spectral elements of sound, and descending modulation of the cochlea. While there have been several investigations of the SOC in primates, there are discrepancies in the descriptions of nuclear borders and even the presence of certain cell groups among studies and species. Herein, we aimed to clarify some of these issues by characterizing the SOC from chimpanzees using Nissl staining, quantitative morphometry and immunohistochemistry. We found the medial superior olive (MSO) to be the largest of the SOC nuclei and the arrangement of its neurons and peri-MSO to be very similar to humans. Additionally, we found neurons in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) to be immunopositive for the calcium binding protein calbindin. Further, most neurons in the MNTB, and some neurons in the lateral nucleus of the trapezoid body were associated with large, calretinin-immunoreactive calyx terminals. Together, these findings indicate the organization of the SOC of chimpanzees is organized very similar to the SOC in humans and suggests modifications to this region among species consistent with differences in head/body size, restricted hearing range and sensitivity to low frequency sounds.

Stapes vibrations induced by piezoelectric floating mass transducer

The paper presents a problem of nonlinear vibrations in the human middle ear stimulated by a piezoelectric floating mass transducer. The transducer is connected to the malleus by means of a coupler that is nonlinear. This nonlinearity together with the transducer has a key meaning for the middle ear behaviour because the improved model of piezoelectric transducer is used compared to previous papers. Nonlinear coupler stiffness and the applied voltage to the transducer produce a change of middle ear natural frequency. Moreover, a bistability effect of periodic solution and irregular vibrations are observed as well. The chaotic motion can exist in the hearing range that is especially harmful for patients who use implants with piezoelectric floating mass transducer.

Training Programs for Improving Speech Perception in Noise: A Review.

Understanding speech in the presence of noise is difficult and challenging, even for people with normal hearing. Accurate pitch perception, coding and decoding of temporal and intensity cues, and cognitive factors are involved in speech perception in noise (SPIN); disruption in any of these can be a barrier to SPIN. Because the physiological representations of sounds can be corrected by exercises, training methods for any impairment can be used to improve speech perception. This study describes the various types of bottom-up training methods: pitch training based on fundamental frequency (F0) and harmonics; spatial, temporal, and phoneme training; and top-down training methods, such as cognitive training of functional memory. This study also discusses music training that affects both bottom-up and top-down components and speech training in noise. Given the effectiveness of all these training methods, we recommend identifying the defects underlying SPIN disorders and selecting the best training approach.

Questions and controversies surrounding the perception and neural coding of pitch.

Pitch is a fundamental aspect of auditory perception that plays an important role in our ability to understand speech, appreciate music, and attend to one sound while ignoring others. The questions surrounding how pitch is represented in the auditory system, and how our percept relates to the underlying acoustic waveform, have been a topic of inquiry and debate for well over a century. New findings and technological innovations have led to challenges of some long-standing assumptions and have raised new questions. This article reviews some recent developments in the study of pitch coding and perception and focuses on the topic of how pitch information is extracted from peripheral representations based on frequency-to-place mapping (tonotopy), stimulus-driven auditory-nerve spike timing (phase locking), or a combination of both. Although a definitive resolution has proved elusive, the answers to these questions have potentially important implications for mitigating the effects of hearing loss via devices such as cochlear implants.

Periodically driven model with quasiperiodic potential and staggered hopping amplitudes: Engineering of mobility gaps and multifractal states

In this study, we examine whether periodic driving of a model with a quasiperiodic potential can generate interesting Floquet phases that have no counterparts in the static model. Specifically, we consider the Aubry-Andr\'e model, which is a one-dimensional time-independent model with an on-site quasiperiodic potential ${V}_{0}$ and a nearest-neighbor hopping amplitude that is taken to have a staggered form. We add a uniform hopping amplitude that varies in time either sinusoidally or as a square pulse with a frequency $\ensuremath{\omega}$. Unlike the static Aubry-Andr\'e model, which has a simple phase diagram with only two phases (only extended or only localized states), we find that the driven model has four possible phases for the Floquet eigenstates: a phase with gapless quasienergy bands and only extended states, a phase with multiple mobility gaps separating different quasienergy bands, a mixed phase with coexisting extended, multifractal, and localized states, and a phase with only localized states. The multifractal states have generalized inverse participation ratios that scale with the system size with exponents that are different from the values for both extended and localized states. In addition, we observe intricate reentrant transitions between the different kinds of states when $\ensuremath{\omega}$ and ${V}_{0}$ are varied. The appearance of such transitions is confirmed by the behavior of the Shannon entropy. Many of our numerical results can be understood from an analytic Floquet Hamiltonian derived using a Floquet perturbation theory that uses the inverse of the driving amplitude as the perturbation parameter. In the limit of high frequency and large driving amplitude, we find that the Floquet quasienergies match the energies of the undriven system, but the Floquet eigenstates are much more extended. We also study the spreading of a one-particle wave packet, and we find that it is always ballistic but the ballistic velocity varies significantly with the system parameters, sometimes showing a nonmonotonic dependence on ${V}_{0}$ that does not occur in the static model. Finally, we compare the results for the driven model, which has a static staggered hopping amplitude, with a model that has a static uniform hopping amplitude, and we find some significant differences between the two cases. All of our results are found to be independent of the driving protocol, either sinusoidal or square pulse. We conclude that the interplay of the quasiperiodic potential and driving produces a rich phase diagram that does not appear in the static model.

An Investigation in the Measurable Differences between Pitch Perception in the Voice and Pitch Perception of External Sound Sources

ObjectivesPitch perception is an important part of accurate singing. Therefore, accurate singing requires the ability to accurately assess the pitch in one's own voice.There are two objectives of this study the first was to investigate whether there is a measurable difference in perceived pitch in one's voice to the pitch one perceives from an external sound source. The second, to measure the effects of occlusion on pitch accuracy over a melodic phrase. Study DesignWe recruited 16 participants for this study. The study that was designed to investigate the perceptual difference was split into two parts. The first is a one-to-one pitch matching test where they would recreate a pitch with singing and matching external pitches. The second was singing the familiar song ‘Happy Birthday’ which was used to measure pitch accuracy over a melodic phrase and to measure the effects of occlusion on pitch accuracy while singing. MethodsThe one-to-one study involved singing back a series of 5 notes to a set vowel which were the same 5 notes used when matching them to a series of possible pitches on the button test. The melodic test was to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ 3 times, the first normally, the second wearing headphones to occlude the ear to reduce air conductive hearing and the third time with white noise to mask all hearing. ResultsThe results showed a higher accuracy of pitch matching with external sounds over using their voice, and some form of occlusion (wearing headphones or headphones with white noise) showed the version with higher pitch accuracy. ConclusionsThe results of this study showed that there was improved pitch accuracy when comparing two external sounds in pitch and when singing occlusion of some form improved pitch accuracy. This could suggest a difference when recreating pitch between the voice and matching external sound sources. Furthermore, with the improvements shown from occluding the ears, it could further suggest a difference in pitch perception abilities between the voice and external sound sources. This could have implications of improving pitch accuracy in a studio environment.

Stability of determining the potential from partial boundary data in a Schrödinger equation in the high frequency limit

Stability of determining the potential from partial boundary data in a Schrödinger equation in the high frequency limit

Auditory temporal resolution and backward masking in musicians with absolute pitch.

Among the many questions regarding the ability to effortlessly name musical notes without a reference, also known as absolute pitch, the neural processes by which this phenomenon operates are still a matter of debate. Although a perceptual subprocess is currently accepted by the literature, the participation of some aspects of auditory processing still needs to be determined. We conducted two experiments to investigate the relationship between absolute pitch and two aspects of auditory temporal processing, namely temporal resolution and backward masking. In the first experiment, musicians were organized into two groups according to the presence of absolute pitch, as determined by a pitch identification test, and compared regarding their performance in the Gaps-in-Noise test, a gap detection task for assessing temporal resolution. Despite the lack of statistically significant difference between the groups, the Gaps-in-Noise test measures were significant predictors of the measures for pitch naming precision, even after controlling for possible confounding variables. In the second experiment, another two groups of musicians with and without absolute pitch were submitted to the backward masking test, with no difference between the groups and no correlation between backward masking and absolute pitch measures. The results from both experiments suggest that only part of temporal processing is involved in absolute pitch, indicating that not all aspects of auditory perception are related to the perceptual subprocess. Possible explanations for these findings include the notable overlap of brain areas involved in both temporal resolution and absolute pitch, which is not present in the case of backward masking, and the relevance of temporal resolution to analyze the temporal fine structure of sound in pitch perception.

Auditory brainstem response and cochlear microphonic potentials evoked by the bone-conducted ultrasound above the hearing range in guinea pigs.

Auditory brainstem response and cochlear microphonic potentials evoked by the bone-conducted ultrasound above the hearing range in guinea pigs.

A Retrospective Study on Tinnitus Prevalence and Disease Associations in the Hospital-Based Population

Background: Tinnitus is the perception of sound, which is not generated by external stimulus. Due to its clinical heterogeneity, lack of objective measurements and accompanying symptoms, a gold standard treatment, i.e., effective for every patient has not been established yet. The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence and characteristics of tinnitus, disease, and lifestyle factors associated with tinnitus. Materials and Methods: Data were obtained from a total of 224 patients (mean age 46.21 ± 12.65), 141 men and 83 women, who attended the audiology department between 2015 and 2021. Results: We found that the tinnitus pitch perception (PP) of males was significantly higher than females (P < 0.001). In addition, we observed a significant positive correlation between tinnitus PP and tinnitus loudness perception (P < 0,005). 12.1% (27 patients) of the individuals included in the study had metabolic disorders (Vitamin D deficiency, diabetes, and cholesterol). Fifty-four percent (121 patients) of the individuals included in the study had normal hearing. Conclusions: Metabolic and cardiovascular diseases should be taken into account for tinnitus anamnesis. The amount of tinnitus patients with normal hearing is also notable.

Pitch and tone: Primacy of production criteria in auditory perception

The brain performs diverse and complex operations effortlessly. Its sensitivity to minute stimulus changes, and precision in scaling sensory magnitudes, are yet to be understood by humans. Nevertheless, its limitless vault is accessible only if scientists can discipline themselves to abide by the laws of their science. There exist well-established psychophysical principles for dealing with sensory, mental, and all intangible phenomena. However, in hearing research, the generation of law-abiding scientists are long gone; the current generation of computer-oriented scientists hope to resolve all problems through random and effortless computations of endless varieties of meaningless variables without the concept of invariance. The case in point is hearing research; we are still searching for pitch (or tone) after 2,500 years of intensive inquiry. The failure augurs the existence of fundamental errors in the science. This paper describes a search for the origin of pitch which plays lexical and intonational roles in Yoruba, a tone language. The approach is based on the ecological conception of sound, with experimental evidence from speech surrogates (drums) and strings, guided by the concept of invariance. The investigations attain the conclusion that the brain does not perform any computations at all in pitch and tone perception, neither in music nor in speech. Rather, the data show that the brain measures a unique mechanical parameter of the sound source to which all physical and mechanical transformations lead. In every pitch/tone perception context, therefore, the brain discards all other factors which convey other attributes of sound outside pitch and tone. This finding accounts for constancy in auditory code perception despite overwhelming variability at the production and acoustic levels. Implications for all aspects of auditory perception research and neurophysiological investigations into brain mechanisms are discussed.

Individual and interactive effect of ultrasound pre-treatment on drying kinetics and biochemical qualities of food: A critical review.

One of the earliest and most prevalent processing methods to increase the shelf-life of foods is drying. In recent years, there has been an increased demand to improve product quality while lowering processing times, expenses, and energy usage in the drying process. Pre-treatments are therefore effectively used before drying to enhance heat and mass transfer, increase drying efficiency, and lessen degradation of final product quality. When food is dried, changes are expected in its taste, color, texture, and physical, chemical, and microbial properties. This has led to the need for research and development into the creation of new and effective pre-treatment technologies including high-pressure processing, pulsed electric field, ultraviolet irradiation, and ultrasound. Sound waves that have a frequency >20kHz, which is above the upper limit of the audible frequency range, are referred to as "ultrasound". Ultrasonication (US) is a non-thermal technology, that has mechanical, cavitational, and sponge effects on food materials. Ultrasound pre-treatment enhances the drying characteristics by producing microchannels in the food tissue, facilitating internal moisture diffusion in the finished product, and lowering the barrier to water migration. The goal of ultrasound pre-treatment is to save processing time, conserve energy, and enhance the quality, safety, and shelf-life of food products. This study presents a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of ultrasound, its mechanism, and how the individual effects of ultrasonic pre-treatment and the interactive effects of ultrasound-assisted technologies affect the drying kinetics, bioactive components, color, textural, and sensory qualities of food. The difficulties that can arise when using ultrasound technology as a drying pretreatment approach, such as inadequate management of heat, the employment of ultrasound at a limited frequency, and the generation of free radicals, have also been explained.

Asset flow model for a homogeneous group of investors: High-frequency trading limit

Deterministic and stochastic asset flow models have been designed to study the effects of behavioral components on market dynamics. These models have been successful in explaining the mechanisms behind price overshoots, oscillations, reversals, liquidity- and value-induced market bubbles and oscillations, and flash crashes. While these models are originally nonlinear, we demonstrate here that, in the case of a market consisting of a homogeneous group of investors with identical trading sentiments, natural modifications of the response functions yield a version that can be represented by a linear dynamical system across the entire state space of the system. We show that this linear version exhibits all types of price behavior, just like the nonlinear version, while also having the benefit of being explicitly integrable even with time-varying parameters. We present a limiting case of the model that corresponds to fast trading, which is appropriate for modern electronic markets, and provide examples illustrating the differences in the response of the price to variability in the intrinsic value of shares or liquidity.

The Key to Singing Off-Key: The Trained Singer and Pitch Perception Distortion

Pitch perception distortion (PPD) is a novel term describing a phenomenon in which an amplified, accompanied singer's perception of their sung pitch relative to band or accompaniment becomes ambiguous, leading to one of two conditions: a) the singer believes they are out of tune with the accompaniment, but are in tune as perceived by a listener, or b) the singer believes they are in tune with the accompaniment, but are not. This pilot study aims to investigate the existence and incidence of PPD among amplified, accompanied performers and identify associated variables. 115 singers were recruited to participate in an online survey, which collected information on musical training, performance environment, and PPD experience. Reported PPD incidence was 68%, with 92% of respondents indicating that PPD occurred rarely. The factors reported as most associated with PPD experiences included loud stage volume, poor song familiarity, singing outside one's habitual pitch range, and singing loudly. Contrary to previous studies and our hypotheses, no association was found between modality of auditory feedback (e.g., in-ears versus floor monitors) and incidence of PPD. Additionally, higher levels of training were found to be associated with higher incidence of PPD. The reported incidence supports that PPD exists beyond chance and anecdotal experience. In light of the highly trained sample, the data suggest that pitch accuracy in accompanied, amplified performance may be more associated with aural environment-specifically loud stage volume-and a highly trained singer's tuning strategy in response to that environment rather than a singer's mastery of vocal intonation skills in isolation. Loud stage volume was implicated as a primary factor associated with PPD, which may be related to the stapedius reflex. Future investigations will target attempted elicitation of PPD in trained singers after establishing baseline auditory reflex thresholds and objective measurements of intonation accuracy.

Modelling the acoustic signature and noise propagation of high speed railway vehicle

The proportion of high speed railway vehicles in the rolling stock of national carriers providing public transport services is constantly increasing. Currently, Alstom vehicles run at the highest speed on railway lines in Poland. The paper attempts to identify the acoustic signature of high speed railway vehicles. There are many works and studies aimed at identifying or defining the acoustic signature of high speed railway vehicles. However, the authors of these works carried out their research in a rather narrow scope, i.e. the measurement cross-section had only 1 or 2 measure-ment points with one microphone at each point. As part of the conducted experimental research, the location of testing grounds was determined, the measurement apparatus was selected and the methodology for carrying out measurements including the assessment of noise emission on curve and straight line were specified for electric multiple units. The object of the tests were railway vehicles of Alstom company, type ETR610, series ED250, the so-called Pendolino, moving on a selected measuring route without stops at a speed of 200 km/h. Measurements were carried out on the railway line no. 4 Grodzisk Mazowiecki – Zawiercie, section Grodzisk Mazowiecki - Idzikowice at kilometre 18+600 (curve) and 21+300 (straight section). When measuring the acoustic signals with a microphone array (4x2), 8 meas-urement microphones operating in the audible range were used. The microphones were placed at a distance of 5 m, 10 m, 20 m and 40 m from the track centre, at a height of 4 m (from the rail head) and at the rail head (approx. 0.8 m from the ground surface). In addition, an acoustic camera with 112 directional microphones was used to locate the main noise sources, which was located at a distance of approximately 20 m from the track centreline. The identification of the main noise sources for high speed railway vehicles, basig on actual acoustic measurements, made it possible to isolate the dominant noise sources, as well as to find out the amplitude-frequency characteristics in the range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, divided into one third octave bands.