Resiude pitch as a function of component spacing

Abstract

To determine whether the pitch shift of the residue was strictly proportional to the frequency spacing between the stimulus components, observers [human] were asked to match the pitch of waves with component spacings of 100, 200, 300 or 400 Hz. The stimuli were sets of 6 or 12 equal-amplitude sinusoids and the position of each set was varied throughout the frequency range in which the residue was audible. The pitch shift of the residue showed a disproportionate increase with component spacing for stimuli containing low-frequency components. Six-component waves produced slightly larger pitch shifts than 12-component waves, again when low-frequency components were included. As the spectral location of the set increased both effects decreased; once the lowest component in the stimulus was more than about 5 times the component spacing, both effects were minimal. The dominance region is apparently a function of the absolute, and the relative, frequency of the components in this case.