School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.
Cereb Cortex. 2012 Jun;22(6):1271-81. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhr192. Epub 2011 Aug 10.
Binaural pitches are auditory percepts that emerge from combined inputs to the ears but that cannot be heard if the stimulus is presented to either ear alone. Here, we describe a binaural pitch that is not easily accommodated within current models of binaural processing. Convergent magnetoencephalography (MEG) and psychophysical measurements were used to characterize the pitch, heard when band-limited noise had a rapidly changing interaural phase difference. Several interesting features emerged: First, the pitch was perceptually lateralized, in agreement with the lateralization of the evoked changes in MEG spectral power, and its salience depended on dichotic binaural presentation. Second, the frequency of the pure tone that matched the binaural pitch lay within a lower spectral sideband of the phase-modulated noise and followed the frequency of that sideband when the modulation frequency or center frequency and bandwidth of the noise changed. Thus, the binaural pitch depended on the processing of binaural information in that lower sideband.
双耳音调是一种听觉感知，它源于双耳的综合输入，但如果刺激只呈现给一只耳朵，则无法听到。在这里，我们描述了一种不易被当前双耳处理模型所包含的双耳音调。我们使用会聚性脑磁图（MEG）和心理物理测量来描述当带限噪声具有快速变化的耳间相位差时所听到的音调。出现了几个有趣的特征：首先，音调在感知上是偏向一侧的，与MEG 光谱功率诱发变化的偏向性一致，其显著性取决于对侧双耳呈现。其次，与双耳音调匹配的纯音频率位于相位调制噪声的较低频谱边带内，并在调制频率或噪声的中心频率和带宽改变时跟随该边带的频率。因此，双耳音调取决于该较低边带中双耳信息的处理。
