Studies have found that rolling the visual environment affects observers’ perception of gravitational vertical and horizontal and that pitching the environment affects observers’ perception of pitch. However, the relationship between these two perceptions is not fully understood. In the present work, observers performed three tasks while in a visual surround whose pitch and roll was manipulated...

Although pitch is a fundamental auditory percept that plays an important role in music, speech, and auditory scene analysis, the neural codes and mechanisms for pitch perception are still poorly understood. In a previous study (Cedolin and Delgutte 2005), we tested the effectiveness of two classic representations for the pitch of harmonic complex tones at the level of the auditory nerve (AN) in...

This study examined whether "melodic contour deafness" (insensitivity to the direction of pitch movement) in congenital amusia is associated with specific types of pitch patterns (discrete versus gliding pitches) or stimulus types (speech syllables versus complex tones). Thresholds for identification of pitch direction were obtained using discrete or gliding pitches in the syllable /ma/ or its ...

In responding to sounds, birds use both relative and absolute pitch perception. As a means of testing which type of pitch perception is dominant, European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were trained to discriminate between low-ascending and high-descending sequences of tones. They were then tested with high-ascending and low-descending sequences during probe and transfer sessions. The birds could...

Most believe that the ability to carry a tune is unevenly distributed in the general population. To test this claim, we asked occasional singers (n=62) to sing a well-known song in both the laboratory and in a natural setting (experiment 1). Sung performances were judged by peers for proficiency, analyzed for pitch and time accuracy with an acoustic-based method, and compared to professional si...

Pitch perception is determined by both place and temporal cues. To explore whether the manner in which these cues are used differs depending on absolute pitch capability, pitch identification experiments with and without pitch references were conducted for subjects with different absolute pitch capabilities and musical experience. Three types of stimuli were used to manipulate place and tempora...

A model of the mechanism of residue pitch perception is revisited. It is evaluated in the context of some new empirical results, and it is proposed that the model is able to reconcile a number of differing approaches in the history of theories of pitch perception. The model consists of four sequential processing stages: peripheral frequency selectivity, within-channel half-wave rectification an...

Evidence is presented that sequential auditory grouping constraints apply to the perception of pitch. Experiment 1 shows that the pitch changes produced by mistuning the fourth harmonic of a 90-ms 12-harmonic 155-Hz fundamental complex tone are substantially reduced when the complex is preceded by four 90-ms tones at the same frequency as the mistuned component. Both the pitch changes and their...

It is estimated that about 4% of the general population may have amusia (or tone deafness). Congenital amusia is a lifelong disability for processing music despite normal intellectual, memory, and language skills. Here we present evidence that the disorder stems from a deficit in fine-grained pitch perception. Amusic and control adults were presented with monotonic and isochronous sequences of ...

Normal right-handed subjects were required to make pitch comparisons of complex tones in which the fundamental frequency was either present or absent. In both conditions, tones were presented monaurally. An increase in left-ear superiority was observed in the response time measurements when the fundamental was absent. These findings support the notion that the right hemisphere possesses a speci...