Subject: Re: The climb of absolute pitch From: Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 20:38:18 -0500 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Thanks. I had been led to believe that frequency was encoded along the BM, and that pitch was the interpretation of this stimulus. Kevin On 2012, Dec 2, at 8:47 AM, Bob Masta wrote: > Can someone explain the supposed mechanism behind neural timing and pitch shift? I don't understand what is being proposed. As I undestand it, since pitch is encoded as *place* along the BM, the neurons respond with a firing rate that encodes *loudness* for their particular frequency place. The firing rate does not encode the frequency of the sound itself. > > What am I missing here? > > Best regards, > > Bob Masta > > ============= > On 1 Dec 2012 at 9:50, Pierre Divenyi wrote: > >> Hi Oded, >> >> Your three-step reasoning makes sense but, indeed, it should be >> experimentally verified. As to the age-related change of neural >> oscillations, Art Wingfield believes that the brain "slows down" as we get >> older. Such a slowing-down could also explain the upward AP shift because >> our reference would shift downward. How this central effect squares with the >> peripheral, BM-stiffening effect is unknown but, again, could be studied in >> the lab. >> >> -Pierre >> >> On 12/1/12 5:17 AM, "Oded Ghitza" <oghitza@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> Hi Pierre, >> If (1) you accept Julius's model of pitch perception, (2) interpret -- as he >> did -- the central component of the model as a mechanism that adjusts f0 of >> an internal harmonic sieve to the point where the MMSE between the sieve and >> the input pattern is minimum, and (3) assume that such mechanism is realized >> by a neuronal circuitry with oscillations ("rhythms") at the core (maybe >> related to Langer, in the late 80's and in the context of pitch perception, >> who measured "temporal rings" in chicks); then, a possible way to examine >> the phenomenon (whether perceived pitch should go up or down, in >> particular), is to look at how the frequency range of neuronal oscillations >> change with age. >> -- >> Oded. >> > Bob Masta > > D A Q A R T A > Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis > www.daqarta.com > Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator > Science with your sound card!