Infant timbre perception: Discrimination of spectral envelopes

Abstract

Seven-month-old infants were trained to discriminate the timbre of tonal complexes that differed in their spectral envelopes. In a conditioned head-turning paradigm, infants initially learned to discriminate stimuli that had the same fundamental frequency, 200 Hz, but different harmonic components (Le., frequencies). After successfully completing the basic timbre discrimination, the same infants learned to discriminate less salient stimuli from which the fundamental frequency had been removed. These results suggest that young infants can analyze the spectra of tonal complexes and discriminate differences in one of the most important cues for timbre perception in adults, the spectral envelope. © 1988 Psychonomic Society, Inc.