Re: Pitch evoked by spectral regularity (inharmonic components) (beauchamp james w )

Subject: Re: Pitch evoked by spectral regularity (inharmonic components)
Date:    Wed, 19 Feb 2003 10:53:25 -0600

Chen-Gia, Have you checked the possibility that f might be heard as the fundamental of approximate harmonics e, e+d, e+2d, ... ? I.e., that f is the virtual pitch frequency? There is a demo similar to this on the ASA/Phillips Auditory Demonstration CD -- Demonstration 21, "Shift of Virtual Pitch", which uses three frequencies, 800+d, 1000+d, 1200+d. The virtual pitch frequency heard is approximately (1/3)*((800+d)/n + (1000+d)/(n+1) + (1200+d)/(n+2)), where n = 4 or 5. Reference is: Schouten et al, "Pitch of the residue", JASA 34, 1418-1424 (1962). My question always is "what is the pitch of a square wave with a missing fundamental?". Jim Beauchamp j-beauch(at) You wrote (in part): >In my experiment, all complex tones contain five components with >frequencies {e, e+d, e+2d, e+3d, e+4d}. Although these spectral components >are generally inharm onic, some pitches can be heard. As expected, one >pitch is the frequency differe nce between the adjacent components; d. It >may be evoked by DPOAEs. > >Strangely enough, there is another pitch f. > >For instance, a complex tone consisting of frequencies {1344, 1344+500, >1344+100 0, 1344+1500, 1344+2000} evokes a pitch f = 336 Hz. Similarly, I >found > >{1680, 1680+500, 1680+1000, 1680+1500, 1680+2000} , f = 420 Hz >{2016, 2016+500, 2016+1000, 2016+1500, 2016+2000} , f = 504 Hz >{2285, 2285+500, 2285+1000, 2285+1500, 2285+2000} , f = 571.2 Hz > >These four tones can be heard in the file > music/ex/a_500.wav. In this file I >demonstrate the pitch sensation f by pitch matching.

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