Creation of Pitch through Binaural Interaction

Abstract

Under certain conditions noise may be introduced separately to the 2 ears, and a pitch-like quality will be perceived which is due to binaural interaction between the phases of the 2 noise stimuli. This pitch quality cannot be explained in terms of 1 of the stimuli alone, because they are both very nearly white noise. Since the effect occurs at low frequencies, narrow band widths, and moderate intensity levels, there are certain implications for pitch perception models. The results emphasize that phase information is of importance in pitch perception at frequencies as high as 1600 cps, and that binaural phase interaction must be taken into account in order to give a satisfactory explanation of existing data.