Effects of Harmonicity and Regularity on the Perception of Sound Sources

Abstract

Introduction This chapter provides an overview of the strong influence of harmonic structure, spectral regularity, and temporal regularity on the perception of sound sources. Following a brief review of pitch perception, two aspects of the segregation of sound sources are covered: first, the segregation of simultaneously presented sounds and their perception as multiple sources (concurrent sound segregation); second, the perception of rapid sequences of sounds that may be perceived either as coming from a single sound source or as coming from more than one source (sequential sound segregation). One way of assessing the perception of sound sources is to ask the listener how many sources have been perceived and with what specific characteristics. However, more objective approaches have been used that measure listeners performance in a task that is assumed to be affected by the number of perceived sources. The chapter covers both approaches, and discusses how and why the demands of the specific task used can influence the pattern of results obtained.