“Periodicity” Pitch and “Place” Pitch

Abstract

In the year of the founding of the Acoustical Society of America, Wever and Bray observed periodic “volleys” of impulses in the auditory nerve. Since that time, the theory of pitch perception—particularly, whether pitch depends upon the frequency of the discharges or upon the locus of the active neural tissue—has been one of the most active issues in physiological and psychological acoustics. The most recently reported observations, those of Hoogland, 1953, support the place theory and the conclusion that “Schouten's residue theory [a form of the volley theory] seems to be improbable.” The present paper contains a demonstration to the contrary, that one can, in fact, hear low pitch with the high-frequency channels of the auditory system—with the part of the system that, according to place theory, should give rise to high pitch. This demonstration is one of Schouten's, but with the low-frequency auditory channels saturated with low-frequency masking noise. The pitch that is heard is correlated with volley frequency but not with Fourier frequency. However, the paper then shows that a pitch-like attribute is associated also with Fourier frequency, and therefore with the place dimension. These demonstrations support a theory that distinguishes two pitch-like attributes. This duplex theory reconciles place and frequency theories in the sense that both appear as partly correct. It makes clear the futility of trying to disprove one by proving the other.