Re: place pitch and temporal pitch

[Martin Braun <nombraun@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday, March 19, 2004 8:38 AM, Christian Kaernbach wrote:

> Evidence for place pitch: A sinusoid of 5 kHz elicits undoubtedly a
> perception of pitch. There is no phase locking in mammals at that high
> frequency, and as it is a sinusoid there is no envelope, so this can
> only be place pitch.

How can you say that a sinusoid of 5 kHz elicits a perception of pitch? You
cannot make pitch-matching experiments with harmonic complexes as references
in this range. At 5 kHz there usually is no longer a perception of pitch
chroma. This effect of "frozen chroma" is commonly taken as sign that the
pitch extractor is no longer functional. Also, such stimuli never occur in
natural sounds. Therefore our hearing is not adapted to them. I see no
reason why the percept a sinusoid of 5 kHz can be called pitch. I suggest
that you tell your students to call the percept a percept of timbre.

Martin

--------------------------------
Martin Braun
Neuroscience of Music
S-671 95 Klässbol
Sweden
web site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm