Subject: Re: Pitch learning From: Annabel Cohen <acohen@xxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 22:21:46 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>On this discussion of the representation of pitch in music, Martin Braun's reference to http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/eng7.htm provides a further reference to: http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/Wright.htm the Wright, Rivera, Hulse, Shyan & Neiworth (2000; Journal of Experimental Psychology:General) article on octave generalization in rhesus monkeys. The evidence in this paper for octave generalization for tonal melodies by rhesus monkeys is impressive, however, whether this reflects something special about sensitivity to the octave (chroma) rather than sensitivity to the overtone series or periodicity is still not clear from this study. The data are interpreted in terms of sensitivity to the octave. The possibility of the sensitivity to periodicity is not mentioned (from my quick recent reading of the article). Transposition to the tritone (6 semitones) was the only non-octave transposition examined. I expect for reasons of expediency (i.e., a lot more testing required), the authors did not test rhesus monkeys on a condition of transposition to the perfect fifth (ratio 3/2 - 7 semitones up or 5 semitones down) in addition to the 1.5 octave ( 6 semitones -- the tritone). It would have been nice to know if rhesus monkeys could be shown to recognize a transposed melody better if transposed to the (harmonically near) perfect fifth as compared to the tritone. The monkey's sensitivity to tonality also shown in the Wright et al. (2000) study is consistent with this possible outcome, i.e., that the perfect fifth would lead to higher performance than the tritone transposition. It can be pointed out also that the timbres used in the Wright et al. study were synthesized instrument tones, which physically represent the octave. A more conservative approach would be to use sine tones such that the octave was not present in the original melodic stimulus (or even synthesized timbres lacking small integer multiples of the fundamental). Annabel Cohen On 7 Feb 2007 at 20:02, Martin Braun wrote: > Ole Kühl wrote: > > "We could say that we conceptualize a pitch through the integration of > information from two different domains: a perceived timbre domain and > a learned schema for partials." > > It does not seem to be a cognitive process, rather a sensory one. > Musicians make use of it without being aware of much. > > Integration across different auditory domains, yes. I would call it > the timbre domain and the chroma domain (for the given case of extreme > low pitch from musical instruments). > > It may not be necessary to assume "a learned schema for partials", > though. The anatomy of the auditory thalamus suggests a chroma > filtering that is as precognitive as the f0 filtering in the midbrain. > For a very short summary, see: > > http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/eng7.htm > > > Martin > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Martin Braun Neuroscience of Music S-671 95 Klässbol Sweden web site: > http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm Annabel J. Cohen, Ph. D. Department of Psychology University of Prince Edward Island Charlottetown, P.E.I. C1A 4P3 CANADA e:mail acohen@xxxxxxxx phone: (902) 628-4325 office; (902) 628-4331 lab fax: (902) 628-4359 www.upei.ca/~musicog www.upei.ca/~cmtc