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Perception of melodies and triads at high frequencies
Abstract   Peer reviewed

Perception of melodies and triads at high frequencies

Daniel R. Guest and Andrew J. Oxenham
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.148(4 Suppl), pp.2462-2462
10/2020
DOI: 10.1121/1.5146799

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Abstract

Accurate pitch perception is possible for harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies (F0s) in the musical range (<4 kHz) even with all harmonics beyond the putative limits of phase locking (>6 kHz). However, it is unknown whether this basic pitch perception supports multiple simultaneous pitch perception. To address this, we measured (1) melody discrimination with and without a complex-tone masker and (2) major-minor discrimination for triads and arpeggios composed of complex tones with low (∼280 Hz) or high (∼1400 Hz) F0s. The tones were filtered to ensure that in high-F0 conditions only harmonics beyond the limits of phase locking were audible. Melody perception was poorer for isolated high-F0 tones than for isolated low-F0 tones, although performance was above chance in both cases. Adding a complex-tone masker in the same spectral region degraded performance for low- and high-F0 tones. Listeners could discriminate major and minor triads and arpeggios for low-F0 tones. For high-F0 tones, some listeners could discriminate major and minor arpeggios but none could discriminate major and minor triads. These results will help elucidate whether different mechanisms underlie the perception of combinations of complex tones at low and high frequencies. [Work supported by NIH R01DC005216 and NSF NRT-UtB1734815.]

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