Song Xindong, Osmanski Michael S, Guo Yueqi, Wang Xiaoqin
Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205
Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Jan 19;113(3):781-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1516120113. Epub 2015 Dec 28.
The perception of the pitch of harmonic complex sounds is a crucial function of human audition, especially in music and speech processing. Whether the underlying mechanisms of pitch perception are unique to humans, however, is unknown. Based on estimates of frequency resolution at the level of the auditory periphery, psychoacoustic studies in humans have revealed several primary features of central pitch mechanisms. It has been shown that (i) pitch strength of a harmonic tone is dominated by resolved harmonics; (ii) pitch of resolved harmonics is sensitive to the quality of spectral harmonicity; and (iii) pitch of unresolved harmonics is sensitive to the salience of temporal envelope cues. Here we show, for a standard musical tuning fundamental frequency of 440 Hz, that the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a New World monkey with a hearing range similar to that of humans, exhibits all of the primary features of central pitch mechanisms demonstrated in humans. Thus, marmosets and humans may share similar pitch perception mechanisms, suggesting that these mechanisms may have emerged early in primate evolution.
对谐波复合音高的感知是人类听觉的一项关键功能，在音乐和语音处理中尤为重要。然而，音高感知的潜在机制是否为人类所独有尚不清楚。基于听觉外周水平的频率分辨率估计，针对人类的心理声学研究揭示了中枢音高机制的几个主要特征。研究表明：（i）谐波音调的音高强度由分辨出的谐波主导；（ii）分辨出的谐波的音高对频谱谐波性的质量敏感；（iii）未分辨出的谐波的音高对时间包络线索的显著性敏感。在此，我们针对440Hz的标准音乐调音基频表明，普通狨猴（Callithrix jacchus），一种听觉范围与人类相似的新大陆猴，展现出了人类所表现出的中枢音高机制的所有主要特征。因此，狨猴和人类可能共享相似的音高感知机制，这表明这些机制可能在灵长类动物进化早期就已出现。
