This paper presents a discussion of tonal categories relating to pitch perception discrimination thresholds and the differences between pitch perception and the perception of tonal timing. Based on the results of a perception experiment using Swedish listeners and tonal timing results from the literature, this paper proposes perceptual mechanisms which may help explain the development of contou...

Relative pitch perception is the identification of the relationship between two successive pitches without identifying the pitches themselves. Absolute pitch perception is the identification of the pitch of a single note without relating it to another note. To date, most pitch algorithms have concentrated on detecting the absolute pitch of a signal. This paper presents an approach for relative ...

Pitch perception is crucial for vocal communication, music perception, and auditory object processing in a complex acoustic environment. How pitch is represented in the cerebral cortex has for a long time remained an unanswered question in auditory neuroscience. Several lines of evidence now point to a distinct non-primary region of auditory cortex in primates that contains a cortical represent...

In this paper, we compare tone perception by speakers from different language backgrounds (L1s) including Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, and Indo-European languages such as English, French, and German. We focus on how two phonetic cues i.e., pitch height and pitch slope, affect perception of pitch direction. Significant differences are found in the degrees of sensitivity to the two cues across L1 g...

Listeners can use pitch changes in speech to identify talkers. Individuals exhibit large variability in sensitivity to pitch and in accuracy perceiving talker identity. In particular, people who have musical training or long-term tone language use are found to have enhanced pitch perception. In the present study, the influence of pitch experience on talker identification was investigated as lis...

Language and music are complex cognitive and neural functions that rely on awareness of one's own sound productions. Information on the awareness of vocal pitch, and its relation to phonemic awareness which is crucial for learning to read, will be important for understanding the relationship between tone-deafness and developmental language disorders such as dyslexia. Here we show that phonemic ...

Perception of duration is known to be affected by a variety of contextual factors, including pitch. It has also long been observed that rhythmic grouping can affect perceived duration such that intervals between perceived groups are inflated in perception. Pitch and timing cues both play key roles in prosodic grouping. This paper explores the hypothesis that certain pitch-based distortions of t...

We present original results and review literature from the past fifty years that address the role of primate auditory cortex in the following perceptual capacities: (1) the ability to perceive small differences between the pitches of two successive tones; (2) the ability to perceive the sign (i.e., direction) of the pitch difference [higher (+) vs. lower (-)]; and (3) the ability to abstract pi...

This chapter discusses models of pitch, old and recent. The aim is to chart their common points – many are variations on a theme – and differences, and build a catalog of ideas for use in understanding pitch perception. The busy reader might read just the next section, a crash course in pitch theory that explains why some obvious ideas don’t work and what are currently the best answers. The bra...

This chapter discusses models of pitch, old and recent. The aim is to chart their common points – many are variations on a theme – and differences, and build a catalog of ideas for use in understanding pitch perception. The busy reader might read just the next section, a crash course in pitch theory that explains why some obvious ideas don’t work and what are currently the best answers. The bra...