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Journal ArticleDOI

Neural correlates of the pitch of complex tones. II. Pitch shift, pitch ambiguity, phase invariance, pitch circularity, rate pitch, and the dominance region for pitch.

01 Sep 1996-Journal of Neurophysiology (American Physiological Society Bethesda, MD)-Vol. 76, Iss: 3, pp 1717-1734
TL;DR: This paper addresses the neural correlates of stimuli that produce more complex patterns of pitch judgments, such as shifts in pitch and multiple pitches, and investigates the relation between pitches associated with periodicity and those associated with click rate.
Abstract: 1. The neural correlates of low pitches produced by complex tones were studied by analyzing temporal discharge patterns of auditory nerve fibers in Dial-anesthetized cats. In the previous paper it was observed that, for harmonic stimuli, the most frequent interspike interval present in the population of auditory nerve fibers always corresponded to the perceived pitch (predominant interval hypothesis). The fraction of these most frequent intervals relative to the total number of intervals qualitatively corresponded to strength (salience) of the low pitches that are heard. 2. This paper addresses the neural correlates of stimuli that produce more complex patterns of pitch judgments, such as shifts in pitch and multiple pitches. Correlates of pitch shift and pitch ambiguity were investigated with the use of harmonic and inharmonic amplitude-modulated (AM) tones varying either in carrier frequency or modulation frequency. Pitches estimated from the pooled interval distributions showed shifts corresponding to "the first effect of pitch shift" (de Boer's rule) that is observed psychophysically. Pooled interval distributions in response to inharmonic stimulus segments showed multiple maxima corresponding to the multiple pitches heard by human listeners (pitch ambiguity). 3. AM and quasi-frequency-modulated tones with low carrier frequencies produce very similar patterns of pitch judgments, despite great differences in their phase spectra and waveform envelopes. Pitches estimated from pooled interval distributions were remarkably similar for the two kinds of stimuli, consistent with the psychophysically observed phase invariance of pitches produced by sets of low-frequency components. 4. Trains of clicks having uniform and alternating polarities were used to investigate the relation between pitches associated with periodicity and those associated with click rate. For unipolar click trains, where periodicity and rate coincide, physiologically estimated pitches closely follow the fundamental period. This corresponds to the pitch at the fundamental frequency (F0) that is heard. For alternating click trains, where rate and periodicity do not coincide, physiologically estimated pitches always closely followed the fundamental period. Although these pitch estimates corresponded to periodicity pitches that are heard for F0s > 150 Hz, they did not correspond to the rate pitches that are heard for F0s 150 Hz. Pitches for high-pass-filtered alternating click trains were estimated from pooled responses of fibers with characteristic frequencies (CFs) > 2 kHz. Roughly equal numbers of intervals at 1/rate and 1/F0 were found for all F0s studied, from 80 to 160 Hz, producing pitch estimates consistent with the rate pitches that are heard after high-pass filtering. The existence region for rate pitch also coincided with the presence of clear periodicities related to the click rate in pooled peristimulus time histograms. These periodicities were strongest for ensembles of fibers with CFs > 2 kHz, where there is widespread synchrony of discharges across many fibers. 6. The "dominance region for pitch" was studied with the use of two harmonic complexes consisting of harmonics 3-5 of one F0 and harmonics 6-12 of another fundamental 20% higher in frequency. When the complexes were presented individually, pitch estimates were always close to the fundamental of the complex. When the complexes were presented concurrently, pitch estimates always followed the fundamental of harmonics 3-5 for F0s of 150-480 Hz. For F0s of 125-150 Hz, pitch estimates followed one or the other fundamental, and for F0s < 125 Hz, pitch estimates followed the fundamental of harmonics 6-12. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The picture that emerges is that temporal modulations are a critical stimulus attribute that assists us in the detection, discrimination, identification, parsing, and localization of acoustic sources and that this wide-ranging role is reflected in dedicated physiological properties at different anatomical levels.
Abstract: Joris, P. X., C. E. Schreiner, and A. Rees. Neural Processing of Amplitude-Modulated Sounds. Physiol Rev 84: 541–577, 2004; 10.1152/physrev.00029.2003.—Amplitude modulation (AM) is a temporal featu...

856 citations


Cites background from "Neural correlates of the pitch of c..."

  • ...An interesting discrepancy between envelope phase-locking and dominant interspike intervals is in “pitch-shift” effects of changes in fc (27, 114): phaselocking to fm stays roughly constant, while the most dominant interspike interval shifts in a direction which paral-...

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Journal Article
TL;DR: Alk-3-en-1-ols are produced in good yields from isobutylene and formaldehyde in the presence of organic carboxylic acid salts of Group IB metals.
Abstract: The yield of alkenols and cycloalkenols is substantially improved by carrying out the reaction of olefins with formaldehyde in the presence of selected catalysts. In accordance with one embodiment, alk-3-en-1-ols are produced in good yields from isobutylene and formaldehyde in the presence of organic carboxylic acid salts of Group IB metals.

851 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results support the possibility of neural plasticity at the brainstem level that is induced by language experience that may be enhancing or priming linguistically relevant features of the speech input.

413 citations


Cites background from "Neural correlates of the pitch of c..."

  • ...Moreover, psychoacoustic and physiologic studies indicate that complex stimuli produce stronger and more accurate pitch percepts when lower harmonics in the pitch dominant region are presented [4,5,31]....

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  • ..., the dominant interval in the auditory nerve population interval distribution, corresponds closely to the fundamental period and the low pitch of a variety of complex stimuli [4]....

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  • ...A similar measure of pitch salience has demonstrated good correspondence between the normalized magnitude of the autocorrelation peak and perceived pitch salience for a number of low pitch complex sounds [4]....

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  • ...Thus, it represents the running distribution of all-order intervals present in the population response [4,23]....

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  • ...Neural phaselocking related to F0 plays a dominant role in the encoding of low pitch associated with complex sounds [4]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined extracellular recordings from primary (S1) and secondary (S2) cortex of awake monkeys performing a frequency discrimination task, and quantified stimulus-driven modulations in firing rate and spike train periodicity, seeking to determine their relevance for frequency discrimination.
Abstract: The flutter sensation is felt when mechanical vibrations between 5 and 50 Hz are applied to the skin. Neurons with rapidly adapting properties in the somatosensory system of primates are driven very effectively by periodic flutter stimuli; their evoked spike trains typically have a periodic structure with highly regular time differences between spikes. A long-standing conjecture is that, such periodic structure may underlie a subject's capacity to discriminate the frequencies of periodic vibrotactile stimuli and that, in primary somatosensory areas, stimulus frequency is encoded by the regular time intervals between evoked spikes, not by the mean rate at which these are fired. We examined this hypothesis by analyzing extracellular recordings from primary (S1) and secondary (S2) somatosensory cortices of awake monkeys performing a frequency discrimination task. We quantified stimulus-driven modulations in firing rate and in spike train periodicity, seeking to determine their relevance for frequency discrimination. We found that periodicity was extremely high in S1 but almost absent in S2. We also found that periodicity was enhanced when the stimuli were relevant for behavior. However, periodicity did not covary with psychophysical performance in single trials. On the other hand, rate modulations were similar in both areas, and with periodic and aperiodic stimuli, they were enhanced when stimuli were important for behavior, and were significantly correlated with psychophysical performance in single trials. Thus, the exquisitely timed, stimulus-driven spikes of primary somatosensory neurons may or may not contribute to the neural code for flutter frequency, but firing rate seems to be an important component of it.

329 citations


Cites background from "Neural correlates of the pitch of c..."

  • ...These IPSFP values represent upper bounds on the information provided by the PSFP that is available to neurons downstream from S1, because neuronal mechanisms that may actually implement an approximate Fourier decomposition—for example, operations based on spike train autocorrelations (Cariani and Delgutte, 1996) or intrinsic oscillators (Ahissar and Vaadia, 1990; Ahissar, 1998)—cannot match the accuracy of the numerical methods (Press et al....

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  • ...…neuronal mechanisms that may actually implement an approximate Fourier decomposition—for example, operations based on spike train autocorrelations (Cariani and Delgutte, 1996) or intrinsic oscillators (Ahissar and Vaadia, 1990; Ahissar, 1998)—cannot match the accuracy of the numerical methods…...

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: It is concluded that the purpose of redundancy in speech communication is to provide a basis for error correction and resistance to noise.
Abstract: Speech is the primary vehicle of human social interaction. In everyday life, speech communication occurs under an enormous range of different environmental conditions. The demands placed on the process of speech communication are great, but nonetheless it is generally successful. Powerful selection pressures have operated to maximize its effectiveness. The adaptability of speech is illustrated most clearly in its resistance to distortion. In transit from speaker to listener, speech signals are often altered by background noise and other interfering signals, such as reverberation, as well as by imperfections of the frequency or temporal response of the communication channel. Adaptations for robust speech transmission include adjustments in articulation to offset the deleterious effects of noise and interference (Lombard 1911; Lane and Tranel 1971); efficient acousticphonetic coupling, which allows evidence of linguistic units to be conveyed in parallel (Hockett 1955; Liberman et al. 1967; Greenberg 1996; see Diehl and Lindblom, Chapter 3); and specializations of auditory perception and selective attention (Darwin and Carlyon 1995). Speech is a highly efficient and robust medium for conveying information under adverse conditions because it combines strategic forms of redundancy to minimize the loss of information. Coker and Umeda (1974, p. 349) define redundancy as “any characteristic of the language that forces spoken messages to have, on average, more basic elements per message, or more cues per basic element, than the barest minimum [necessary for conveying the linguistic message].” This definition does not address the function of redundancy in speech communication, however. Coker and Umeda note that “redundancy can be used effectively; or it can be squandered on uneven repetition of certain data, leaving other crucial items very vulnerable to noise. . . . But more likely, if a redundancy is a property of a language and has to be learned, then it has a purpose.” Coker and Umeda conclude that the purpose of redundancy in speech communication is to provide a basis for error correction and resistance to noise.

259 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1977
TL;DR: In this paper, the nature of sound and the structure and function of the auditory system are discussed, including absolute thresholds, frequency selectivity, masking and the critical band, and the perception of loudness.
Abstract: Preface to the Fifth Edition The nature of sound and the structure and function of the auditory system Absolute thresholds Frequency selectivity, masking and the critical band The perception of loudness Temporal processing in the auditory system Pitch perception Space perception Auditory pattern and object perception Speech perception Practical applications References Glossary Index

2,729 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an account of current trends in auditory research on a level not too technical for the novice, by relating psychological and perceptual aspects of sound to the underlying physiological mechanisms of hearing in a way that the material can be used as a text to accompany an advanced undergraduate or graduate level course in auditory perception.
Abstract: The author's stated general approach is to relate the psychological and perceptual aspects of sound to the underlying physiological mechanisms of hearing in a way that the material can be used as a text to accompany an advanced undergraduate- or graduate-level course in auditory perception. The attempt is to provide an account of current trends in auditory research on a level not too technical for the novice. Psychoacoustic studies on humans and physiological studies on animals serve as the primary bases for subject matter presentation, and many practical applications are offered. Among the chapters are the following: the nature of sound and the structure of the auditory system; loudness, adaptation, and fatigue; frequency analysis, masking, and critical bands; pitch perception and auditory pattern perception; space perception; and speech perception. Within these chapter headings special attention is given to a number of topics, including signal detection theory, monaural and binaural hearing,

1,956 citations


"Neural correlates of the pitch of c..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...…in phase spectra can result in large changes in waveform envelope without concomitant changes in pitch, invariance of pitch frequency with respect to phase was used to falsify simple temporal models that measured intervals between peaks in the unfiltered waveform (Moore 1989; Wightman 1973a,b)....

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  • ...Explicit models for pitch based on this hypothesis are able to readily account for a wide diversity of pitch phenomena (Licklider 195 1; Meddis and Hewitt 1991a,b; Moore 1989; van Noorden 1982)....

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Journal ArticleDOI

1,513 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...Sot. correlations ( Braitenberg 196 1, 1967; Jeffress 1948 ) have Artijc: Intern....

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Book
15 Feb 1966
TL;DR: In this paper, the discharge patterns of single fibers in cat auditory nerve in response to controlled acoustic stimuli were investigated and shown to be similar to those of human auditory nerve, and they were shown to respond to controlled stimuli.
Abstract: Discharge patterns of single fibers in cat auditory nerve in response to controlled acoustic stimuli

1,305 citations