Abstract
Historically, auditory pitch has been considered to be a function of acoustic frequency, with only a small effect being due to absolute intensity. Yet we found that when tones are Doppler shifted so that frequency drops, the pitch dramatically rises and falls, closely following the pattern of dynamic intensity change. We show that continuous intensity change can produce pitch variation comparable to a frequency change approaching an octave. This effect opposes and is an order of magnitude larger than the well-known effect of discrete intensity change in the frequency range employed. We propose that the perceptual interaction of continuous changes in pitch and loudness reflects a natural correlation between changes in frequency and intensity that is neurally encoded to facilitate the parsing and processing of meaningful acoustic patterns.
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This work was supported in part by a grant from Interval Research Corporation to M.K.M., a grant from the National Science Foundation to J.G.N., and a faculty development grant from the College of Wooster.
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Mcbeath, M.K., Neuhoff, J.G. The Doppler effect is not what you think it is: Dramatic pitch change due to dynamic intensity change. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 9, 306–313 (2002). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196286
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196286
Keywords
- Sound Source
- Acoustical Society
- Music Perception
- Pitch Change
- Pitch Perception