Pitch discrimination is better for synthetic timbre than natural musical instrument timbres despite familiarity
Pitch discrimination is better for complex tones than pure tones, but how pitch discrimination differs between natural and artificial sounds is not fully understood. This study compared pitch discrimination thresholds for flat-spectrum harmonic complex tones with those for natural sounds played by m...
Saved in:
| Published in: | The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 152; no. 1; pp. 31 - 42 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
United States
Acoustical Society of America
01-07-2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Pitch discrimination is better for complex tones than pure tones, but how pitch discrimination differs between natural and artificial sounds is not fully understood. This study compared pitch discrimination thresholds for flat-spectrum harmonic complex tones with those for natural sounds played by musical instruments of three different timbres (violin, trumpet, and flute). To investigate whether natural familiarity with sounds of particular timbres affects pitch discrimination thresholds, this study recruited non-musicians and musicians who were trained on one of the three instruments. We found that flautists and trumpeters could discriminate smaller differences in pitch for artificial flat-spectrum tones, despite their unfamiliar timbre, than for sounds played by musical instruments, which are regularly heard in everyday life (particularly by musicians who play those instruments). Furthermore, thresholds were no better for the instrument a musician was trained to play than for other instruments, suggesting that even extensive experience listening to and producing sounds of particular timbres does not reliably improve pitch discrimination thresholds for those timbres. The results show that timbre familiarity provides minimal improvements to auditory acuity, and physical acoustics (e.g., the presence of equal-amplitude harmonics) determine pitch discrimination thresholds more than does experience with natural sounds and timbre-specific training. |
|---|---|
| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Also at: Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom. Also at: School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6G 1H1, Canada. Electronic mail: emma.holmes@ucl.ac.uk |
| ISSN: | 0001-4966 1520-8524 |
| DOI: | 10.1121/10.0011918 |