Binaural edge pitch.

The Huggins pitch effect is created by dichotic broadband noise with interaural phase varying from 0 to 2 pi over a narrow frequency region. The sensation of pitch, corresponding to the frequency of the phase shift region, is usually understood as the result of a binaural differencing operation. We report here a pitch effect created by dichotic broadband noise with interaural phase varying from 0 to pi over a narrow boundary region, creating an edge in a difference channel. We call this effect Binaural Edge Pitch. For experienced listeners the effect is similar in nature and strength to the Huggins pitch. It is strongest for boundary frequencies in the 350--800 Hz range. Pitch matching experiments in this range find that the spread of matches in 1%--2% of the boundary frequency and that the pitch is 4% higher or lower than the boundary frequency. This shift is identical to the shifts which we find for the pitch of high-pass and low-pass noise bands. The correspondence argues strongly for an explanation of the Binaural Edge Pitch in terms of the Equalization--Cancellation Model of binaural processing, and pitch derived from central spectrum.