Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Hear Res. 2010 Dec 1;270(1-2):143-50. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2010.08.002. Epub 2010 Aug 13.
Perceptual weights were estimated in a pitch-comparison experiment to assess the relative influences of individual partial tones on listeners' pitch judgments. The stimuli were harmonic sounds (F0=200 Hz) with partials up to the 12th. Low-numbered partials were removed step-by-step, so that the remaining higher-numbered partials would have a better chance of showing any effect. The individual frequencies of the partials were perturbed randomly on each stimulus presentation, and weights were estimated as the correlation coefficients between the frequency perturbations and the listeners' responses. When the harmonic sounds contained all twelve partials, the listeners depended mostly on the low-numbered, resolved partials within the well-established dominance region. As the low-numbered partials were taken out of the dominance region, the listeners mostly listened to the lowest and highest partials at the spectral edges. For one listener, such an edge-listening strategy took the form of relying on nonlinear combination tones. Overall, there was no indication of any influence on pitch from unresolved partials, thus no evidence of contribution to pitch from temporal cues carried by this group of partials. The estimated patterns of weights were well described by the predictions of Goldstein's optimal-processor model. The predicted weights were inversely proportional to the amount of error for estimating the individual frequencies of the partials. The agreement between the predicted and measured weights suggests that, for harmonic sounds, partials whose frequencies are perceived with the best precision will likely have the greatest influence on perceived pitch.
在一个音高比较实验中，通过估计感知权重来评估个体分音对听众音高判断的相对影响。实验所用的刺激是基频为 200Hz 的谐波声音，其分音最高可达 12 次。通过逐步移除低阶分音，让剩下的高阶分音有机会显示出任何效果。每个刺激呈现时，分音的个体频率都会随机扰动，权重则估计为频率扰动与听众反应之间的相关系数。当谐波声音包含全部 12 个分音时，听众主要依赖于优势区域内的低阶、可分辨分音。随着低阶分音被逐出优势区域，听众主要关注频谱边缘的最低和最高分音。对于一个听众来说，这种边缘听策略表现为依赖于非线性组合音。总的来说，没有任何迹象表明未解决的分音对音高有影响，因此，没有证据表明这组分音通过时间线索对音高有贡献。估计权重的模式与戈德斯坦最优处理器模型的预测非常吻合。预测权重与估计分音个体频率的误差量成反比。预测权重与实测权重之间的一致性表明，对于谐波声音，频率感知精度最高的分音可能对感知音高的影响最大。
