Can a timbre affected by a shifted virtual pitch evoked by double-spaced harmonics?

[Chen-gia TSAI <gia@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

I appreciate all responses for my question on the pitch evoked by inharmonic components.
Thanks Peter Cariani's mail for indicating that the shifted virtual pitch has been predicted by autocorrelation. I have used a program (see http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~martin/MAD/auto/auto.htm ) and seen that the shifted virtual pitches evoked by inharmonic components are precisely predicted.

This success of autocorrelation in modeling pitch extraction is, at least for me, very impressive. I also noticed that the autocorrelation function has been used to analyze musical timbres in

Cariani, P. (2001) Temporal codes, timing nets, and music perception. Journal of New Music Perception, vol.30(2).

This approach appears to differ from the spectral analysis. My first question is: how far has the autocorrelation function been used in timbre research?

My second question is: can a timbre affected by a shifted virtual pitch evoked by double-spaced harmonics in high frequencies?

The Chinese flute is able to produce the tones whose even-numbered harmonics are very weak above 3 kHz. A predominance of odd-numbered harmonics at high-frequencies is likely to evoke a shifted virtual pitch 2f0+delta. As 2f0+delta significantly deviates from the pitch one octave above the fundamental (2f0), this shifted virtual pitch may play a crucial role in the perception of the flute tone.

I hypothesize that the timbre of the tone with double-spaced harmonics at high frequencies is closely related to the shifted virtual pitch. But I cannot figure out an experiment to demonstrate this, because the spectral approach is also able to explain the timbre recognition; the jaggedness of spectral envelop at high frequencies may be perceivable and a consideration of the shifted virtual pitch in timbre cognition may be not necessary.

Many thanks for any help!

Best,
Chen-Gia Tsai
gia@snafu.de