Pitch Perception

ROY D. TIPONES
Objective

To understand the method (s) by which the
auditory system processes a sound in order
to determine its pitch.

Audible range: 20 Hz – 20 kHz*

The pitch of a sound refers to its perceived
tonal height and is subjective; it requires the
listener to make a perceptual judgement

Variations in pitch create a sense of melody
Measuring pitch

A method sometimes employed as an objective
measure of assigning a pitch to a sound:

the listener adjusts the frequency of a sound with a
variable known frequency and similar timbre until the
pitch of both sounds are perceived as being equal.

This method gives the unit of Hertz (Hz) as a
measure of the pitch frequency.

A complex sound is a sound containing more than
one frequency component.

The sound is harmonic if the frequency components
occur at integer multiples of the frequency of a
common (though not always present) fundamental
component.

The waveform of a harmonic sound repeats
periodically at a rate equal to the frequency of the
fundamental component.
 0.1

0.05

-0.05

-0.1
0.15 0.155 0.16 0.165 0.17 0.175 0.18 0.185 0.19 0.195 0.2
Frequency

2000

1310
1048
786
523
262
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Time

Examples of harmonic sounds are the notes
produced from musical instruments such as the
violin, oboe and flute.

Very clear sense of pitch

Diagram: periodic waveform (upper) and spectrum
(lower) of an oboe playing C4

Repetition rate of the waveform

Fundamental component in the frequency spectrum
Theories of Pitch Perception

There are two important theories of how the auditory

system is believed to code the pitch of a sound: the
place theory and the temporal theory.

The place theory is based on the fact that different
frequency components of the input sound stimulate
different places along the basilar membrane and in
turn auditory nerve fibres with different characteristic
frequencies.
Place theory of pitch
perception

The pitch of the sound is assumed to be related to
the excitation pattern it produces on the BM.

The pitch of a pure tone may be explained by the
position of maximum excitation.

For a sound made up of many frequency
components, many different maxima occur along the
basilar membrane at places corresponding to the
frequencies of the components.

The position of the overall maximum, or the position
of the maximum due to the lowest frequency
component may not correspond to the perceived
pitch of the sound.

It is known that the pitch of a harmonic sound can
remain the same even when energy at its
fundamental frequency has been removed.

This cannot be explained by the place theory
Temporal theory of pitch
perception

The waveform of a sound with a strong
unambiguous pitch is periodic.

The basis for the temporal theory of pitch perception
is the timing of neural firings, which occur in
response to vibrations on the basilar membrane.

Nerve firings occur at particular phases of the
waveform; a process called phase locking.
Temporal theory

Due to phase locking the time intervals between the
successive firings occur at approximately integer
multiples of the period of the waveform.

In this way the waveform periodicity that occurs at
each place on the basilar membrane is coded.

At some point in the auditory system these time
intervals have to be measured.
In sum

The auditory processing parts of the brain are
supplied with information concerning the place of
stimulation on the basilar membrane (place theory)
and neural firing patterns (temporal theory).

The importance of both types of information may
depend on the frequencies present and the type of
sound.

Place coding may dominate for frequencies above 5
kHz where phase locking is reduced - below this
temporal information may be dominant.