Pitch strength and Stevens's power law.

Full Abstract

Recent studies have suggested that the saliency or the strength of pitch of complex sounds can be accounted for on the basis of the temporal properties in the stimulus waveform as measured by the height of the first peak in the waveform autocorrelation function. We used a scaling procedure to measure the pitch strength from 15 listeners for four different pitches of complex sounds in which the height of the first peak in the autocorrelation function systematically varied. Pitch strength judgments were evaluated in terms of a modification of Stevens's power law in which temporal information was used from both the waveform fine structure and the envelope. Best fits of this modified power law to the judged pitch strengths indicate that the exponent in Stevens's power law is greater than 1. The results suggest that pitch strength is primarily determined by the waveform fine structure, but the stimulus envelope can also contribute to the pitch strength.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Shofner, William P (WP); Selas, George (G);

Affiliation: Parmly Hearing Institute, Loyola University Chicago, Illinois 60626, USA. wshofne(-atsign-)luc.edu

Grants: P01 DC00293 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Perception & psychophysics (Percept Psychophys), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 64 (issue 3) : pp 437-50

Dates: Created 2002/06/06; Completed 2002/06/28; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12049284, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.