Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

The octave illusion revisited again.

Diana Deutsch1

  • 1University of California, San Diego.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
|April 1, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Perceiving Slope and Acceleration: Evidence for Variable Tempo Sampling in Pitch-Based Sonification of Functions.

IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics·2025
Same author

Absolute pitch is disrupted by a memory illusion.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2021
Same author

Bis(dimethyl sulfoxide-κO)tetra-kis-(μ2-3,4,5-tri-meth-oxy-benzoato-κ(2) O:O')dizinc.

Acta crystallographica. Section E, Structure reports online·2014
Same author

Absolute pitch among students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music: a large-scale direct-test study.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2013
Same author

On-line perception of Mandarin Tones 2 and 3: evidence from eye movements.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2013
Same author

Absolute pitch is associated with a large auditory digit span: a clue to its genesis.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2013
Same journal

Human thermal sensitivity drifts at extreme temperatures.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Dynamic competition between selective attention and spatial prediction during visual search.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Encapsulation of the visual perception of social events from semantic priming.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Biasmapping: Idiosyncratic covert search in the vicinity of fixation.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

What are you still waiting for? Fricative recognition shows encapsulated processing and is partially predicted by secondary cue reliance.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Eye movements reveal that drivers can predict the location of hazards in dynamic road scenes but gaze and awareness are dissociable.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
See all related articles

The octave illusion, where alternating tones are perceived as changing pitch, is explained by separate auditory pathways, not diplacusis. New experiments support the original auditory pathway model.

Area of Science:

  • Auditory Perception
  • Psychoacoustics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • The octave illusion involves alternating tones presented to different ears, leading to perceived pitch shifts.
  • Deutsch's (1974) original explanation proposed separate 'what' and 'where' auditory pathways.
  • Chambers et al. (2002) contested this, suggesting diplacusis (perceptual pitch distortion) as the cause.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To re-evaluate the octave illusion and its underlying mechanisms.
  • To critically assess the methodology of Chambers et al. (2002).
  • To provide new experimental evidence supporting or refuting existing theories.

Main Methods:

  • Critique of previous experimental procedures used to study the octave illusion.
  • Design and execution of a new experiment investigating the octave illusion.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analysis of participants' perception of alternating tones separated by an octave.

    • Main Results:

    • The study found that participants generally perceive an octave difference, not a semitone.
    • Experimental findings align with Deutsch's (1975a) auditory pathway model.
    • Results contradict the diplacusis hypothesis proposed by Chambers et al. (2002).

    Conclusions:

    • The octave illusion is best explained by separate auditory pathways.
    • The diplacusis hypothesis for the octave illusion is not supported by the new findings.
    • Further research should consider the role of auditory pathway specialization in auditory illusions.