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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Consonance perception beyond the traditional existence region of pitch
AU - Carcagno, Samuele
AU - Lakhani, Saday
AU - Plack, Christopher
PY - 2019/10/10
Y1 - 2019/10/10
N2 - Some theories posit that the perception of consonance is based on neural periodicity detection, which is dependent on accurate phase locking of auditory nerve fibers to features of the stimulus waveform. In the current study, 15 listeners were asked to rate the pleasantness of complex tone dyads (2 note chords) forming various harmonic intervals and bandpass filtered in a high-frequency region (all components >5.8 kHz), where phase locking to the rapid stimulus fine structure is thought to be severely degraded or absent. The two notes were presented to opposite ears. Consonant intervals (minor third and perfect fifth) received higher ratings than dissonant intervals (minor second and tritone). The results could not be explained in terms of phase locking to the slower waveform envelope because the preference for consonant intervals was higher when the stimuli were harmonic, compared to a condition in which they were made inharmonic by shifting their component frequencies by a constant offset, so as to preserve their envelope periodicity. Overall the results indicate that, if phase locking is indeed absent at frequencies greater than ∼5 kHz, neural periodicity detection is not necessary for the perception of consonance.
AB - Some theories posit that the perception of consonance is based on neural periodicity detection, which is dependent on accurate phase locking of auditory nerve fibers to features of the stimulus waveform. In the current study, 15 listeners were asked to rate the pleasantness of complex tone dyads (2 note chords) forming various harmonic intervals and bandpass filtered in a high-frequency region (all components >5.8 kHz), where phase locking to the rapid stimulus fine structure is thought to be severely degraded or absent. The two notes were presented to opposite ears. Consonant intervals (minor third and perfect fifth) received higher ratings than dissonant intervals (minor second and tritone). The results could not be explained in terms of phase locking to the slower waveform envelope because the preference for consonant intervals was higher when the stimuli were harmonic, compared to a condition in which they were made inharmonic by shifting their component frequencies by a constant offset, so as to preserve their envelope periodicity. Overall the results indicate that, if phase locking is indeed absent at frequencies greater than ∼5 kHz, neural periodicity detection is not necessary for the perception of consonance.
U2 - 10.1121/1.5127845
DO - 10.1121/1.5127845
M3 - Journal article
VL - 146
SP - 2279
EP - 2290
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
SN - 0001-4966
ER -