Inferences from Dichotic Pitch for Binaural Modeling

A dichotic pitch can be perceived due to the binaural presentation of white noise with a particular interaural phase relationship. Three perceptual aspects are characteristic: the pitch value, the timbre of the phenomenon, and the lateralized position of the pitch image. As dichotic pitch phenomena are generally considered to be natural epiphenomena of the mechanisms of binaural hearing, inferences for binaural modeling can be drawn from their behavior. Current models like Cross Correlation, Equalization Cancellation (EC), modified EC, and the Central Spectrum theory (CAP-CS) were inspected for their ability to explain the main aspects of dichotic pitch. It turns out that only CAP-CS theory is able to predict all existing data in a consistent way. Typical examples will be highlighted during the presentation.