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Re: Neural mechanisms of octave equivalence



Diana, your method starts with the "frequency specific neuron", which is what I don't find plausible in the context of "what the cochlea does".  The primary auditory neurons from the cochlea respond to quite a range of frequencies (at medium and high sound levels), and even the frequency to which they respond best moves by more than a few semitones with loudness.  Are there higher-level neurons that are more specific to frequency? Not that I know of.

I agree with Jont that temporal mechanisms make more sense.  Then harmonic pitch relations like octaves and other consonant intervals have a natural explanation in terms of common periods, rather than the convergences between different places that seem to be arbitrary or perhaps numerological.

Perhaps birds don't do this kind of temporal feature processing, but mammals do?

Dick


On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 9:55 PM, Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
My early 1969 article :

Deutsch, D. Music Recognition. Psychological Review, 1969, 76, 300-309, [PDF Document]

proposed a neural network in which  octave equivalence is subserved by multipeak neurons that are spaced at octave intervals. It also proposes  neural underpinnings 
of other characteristics of octave equivalence. 


Diana

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Professor Diana Deutsch
Department of Psychology                          
University of California, San Diego
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On Sep 24, 2016, at 2:45 AM, Ian Cross <ic108@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi, Ani: A paper that you might find of interest is Moerel, M., De Martino, F., Santoro, R., Yacoub, E., & Formisano, E. (2015). Representation of pitch chroma by multi-peak spectral tuning in human auditory cortex. NeuroImage, 106(0), 161-169.


On 24/09/2016 08:59, Alain de Cheveigne wrote:
Hi Ani, 

Octave “equivalence” is an emergent property of both pattern-matching and autocorrelation models of pitch. All harmonics of the tone at the octave belong to the harmonic series of the lower tone.  Likewise autocorrelation peaks of the lower tone coincide with peaks of the tone at the octave.  Some neural instantiations of these models are Shihab Shamma’s harmonic template model, or Cariani’s work on autocorrelation (based on Licklider’s ideas), and there are many others.  Whether or not any specific model is supported by anatomical or electrophysiological data is less clear.

Actually “equivalence” is a misnomer. The relation is not commutative: the harmonics of the lower tone do not all belong to the harmonic series of the octave.  Likewise peaks of the autocorrelation of the octave tone are not all peaks of the lower tone.  Thus these models would predict an asymmetry in the perceptual similarity between octaves (i.e. an octave tone “resembles” the lower tone but not vice-versa).  I don’t know of any relevant behavioral data or music-theoretical results on this.

Alain

—
de Cheveigné, A. (2005) Pitch perception models. In: Pitch - Neural coding and perception (Plack C, Oxenham A, eds). New York: Springer, 169-233. (http://audition.ens.fr/adc/pdf/2005_pitch_SHAR.pdf)
Shamma S, and Klein D (2000) The case of the missing pitch templates: how harmonic templates emerge in the early auditory system. J Acoust Soc Am 107:2631-2644.
Cariani PA, and Delgutte B (1996b) Neural correlates of the pitch of complex tones. II. Pitch shift, pitch ambiguity, phase-invariance, pitch circularity, rate-pitch and the dominance region for pitch. J Neurophysiol 76:1717-1734.
Licklider JCR (1951) A duplex theory of pitch perception (reproduced in Schubert 1979, 155-160). Experientia 7:128-134.


On 23 Sep 2016, at 13:06, Patel, Aniruddh D. <a.patel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear List,
 
Is anyone aware on theoretical or empirical papers on the neural mechanisms of octave equivalence in auditory perception?
 
Interestingly, recent works suggests that songbirds may not perceive octave equivalence:
 
Hoeschele, M., Weisman, R. G., Guillette, L. M., Hahn, A. H., & Sturdy, C. B. (2013). Chickadees fail standardized operant tests for octave equivalence. Animal cognition, 16(4), 599-609.
 
Thanks,
 
Ani Patel
 
Aniruddh D. Patel
Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Tufts University
490 Boston Ave.
Medford, MA 02155
 
Senior Fellow
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
Azrieli Program in Brain, Mind, & Consciousness
 
a.patel@xxxxxxxxx
http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/people/patel/

-- 
Ian Cross
Director, Centre for Music & Science
Faculty of Music
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB3 9DP
www.cam.ac.uk/~cross