A possible neurophysiological basis of the octave enlargement effect

Although the physical octave is defined as a simple ratio of 2:1, listeners prefer slightly greater octave ratios. Ohgushi [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 73, 1694-1700 (1983)] suggested that a temporal model for octave matching would predict this octave enlargement effect because, in response to pure tones, auditory-nerve interspike intervals are slightly larger than the stimulus period. In an effort to test Ohgushi's hypothesis, auditory-nerve single-unit responses to pure-tone stimuli were collected from Dial-anesthetized cats. It was found that although interspike interval distributions show clear phase-locking to the stimulus, intervals systematically deviate from integer multiples of the stimulus period. Due to refractory effects, intervals smaller than 5 msec are slightly larger than the stimulus period and deviate most for small intervals. On the other hand, first-order intervals are smaller than the stimulus period for stimulus frequencies less than 500 Hz. It is shown that this deviation is the combined effect of phase-locking and multiple spikes within one stimulus period. A model for octave matching was implemented which compares frequency estimates of two tones based on their interspike interval distributions. The model quantitatively predicts the octave enlargement effect. These results are consistent with the idea that musical pitch is derived from auditory-nerve interspike interval distributions.