Pitch of complex tones

Abstract

There has been much research on low pitch, but the mechanism of the perception of low pitch has not yet been made clear. In this paper, the characteristics of the pitch of complex tones were compared with those of pure tones. The effect of duration on pitch discrimination for complex tones was almost the same as that for pure tone, but the slope of the DL curve as a function of the duration was a little slower for the complex tone than for the pure tone in the region of shorter duration. The pitch shift due to the auditory fatigue observed for the pure tones was also observed for the complex tones. The effect of a preceding tone on the pitch of a complex tone was also observed. The pitch of the complex tone was influenced by a preceding tone with the same frequency as one of the components of the complex tone. Based on these observations, the process of pitch extraction for complex tones was discussed.