pitch or chroma of high-frequency pure tones (Richard Parncutt )

Subject: pitch or chroma of high-frequency pure tones
From:    Richard Parncutt  <richard.parncutt(at)uni-graz.at>
Date:    Wed, 24 Mar 2004 11:55:51 +0100

Has anyone ever done an experiment in which listeners match very
high-frequency pure tones (e.g. in the 4 to 8 kHz range) to
octave-complex tones (Shepard tones)? In one condition, listeners could
adjust the frequency of the pure tone to match the complex, and in
another condition adjust complex to match the pure. The degree to which
this is possible could be taken as a measure of the pitch salience of
the high-frequency pure tones. Of course it is not quite that simple,
because the result could also be interpreted as involving the upper
limit of the ability to perceive compound octave intervals, which cannot
be operationally separated from the notion of chroma.

Richard Parncutt, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Musicology
Institut für Musikwissenschaft der KF-Universität Graz
Mozartgasse 3,  A-8010 Graz (Austria/Europe)
Tel +43 316 380-2409 or -2405   Fax +43 316 380-9755
<lastname>(at)uni-graz.at   http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/muwi/parncutt

Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM04)
Graz/Austria, 15-18 April 2004
http://gewi.uni-graz.at/~cim04/