Re: Effect of duration on pitch perception

[Martin Braun <nombraun@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Flemming, Erik, and others,

the "actual issue in this discussion" (Flemming) was that there has been,
for several decades now, an established culture in some corners of hearing
research to ignore valid evidence, if it does not fit a cherished dogma.

Patterson et al. (1983) reported that the minimum stimulus duration for the
perception of pitch of a complex tone with f0 = 100 Hz was < 20 ms. For the
perception of pitch of a pure-tone with f =100 Hz, however, the minimum
stimulus duration was > 80 ms.

Contrary to what others have written in this thread last week, the authors
of this report did not discuss any implications of their findings, let alone
offer a possible explanation.

The most obvious conclusion that has to be drawn from the results is that
they ruled out the place-pattern hypothesis of pitch. If there were a
"harmonic grid" (Erik) in the brain that needed a stimulus duration of > 80
ms to excite the 100 Hz position, the same grid could NOT be excited at its
positions of 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 Hz in a stimulus duration of < 20
ms.


Patterson, R.D., Peters, R.W., Milroy, R., 1983. Threshold duration for
melodic pitch. In: R. Klinke, W. Hartmann (Eds.), Hearing - Physiological
bases and Psychophysics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 321-25.

Martin

----------------------------

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


Flemming Vestergaard had written:

> > If you look at this from a computational point of view, it's clear that a
complex tone carries more information than a pure tone.
> From an engineering standpoint, it's clear that you need more time to
measure a low frequency tone than a high frequency one.
Quite another effect may stem from the fact that it's uncommon for people to
listen to pure tones. These are rather distasting for most people.

> > I was originally a psychologist (PhD perception), two decades ago, doing
> > something else now, but can anyone explain me what is the actual issue in
> > this discussion?