Deutsch's Octave Illusion
The octave illusion was discovered by Deutsch in 1973. It was first reported byDeutsch at a meeting of the
Acoustical Society of America
(Deutsch 1974a) and firstpublished by Deutsch,
Nature
(1974b).This illustration shows the pattern that produces the illusion. Two tones that arespaced an octave apart are alternated repeatedly at a rate of four per second. Theidentical sequence is played over headphones to both ears simultaneously, except thatwhen the right ear receives the high tone the left ear receives the low tone, and viceversa. The tones are sine waves of constant amplitude, and follow each other withoutamplitude drops at the transitions. So in fact the listener is presented with a single,continuous two-tone chord, with the ear of input for each component switchingrepeatedly.Despite its simplicity, this pattern is almost never heard correctly, and insteadproduces a number of illusions. Many people hear a single tone which switches from earto ear, while its pitch simultaneously shifts back and forth between high and low. So itseems as though one ear is receiving the pattern 'high tone - silence - high tone - silence'while at the same time the other ear is receiving the pattern 'silence - low tone - silence -low tone'. Even more strangely, when the earphone positions are reversed many peoplehear the same thing: The tone that had appeared in the right ear still appears in the rightear, and the tone that had appeared in the left ear still appears in the left ear.The octave illusion has another surprising property - righthanders and lefthanderstend to hear this pattern in different ways. Righthanders tend to hear the high tone onthe right and the low tone on the left, regardless of how the earphones are positioned.Yet lefthanders vary considerably in terms of where the high and low tones appear to becoming from. Moreover, the tendency to hear the high tone on the right and the lowtone on the left is stronger among people with only righthanders in their family thanamong those with a lefthanded parent or sibling.Other people experience quite different illusions. Some hear a single tone whichswitches from ear to ear, whose pitch remains the same or changes only slightly as thetone appears to change location. Yet others describe quite complex perceptions. Forexample, some hear a low tone which switches from ear to ear, whose pitch shifts backand forth by a semitone, together with an intermittent high tone in one ear. Other peoplehear a high tone which switches from ear to ear, together with an intermittent low tone
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