Analytic and synthetic pitch of two-tone complexes

An experiment was performed in which subjects had to judge whether the pitch of two sequential sounds went up or down. The sounds were harmonic two-tone complexes. They were constructed in such a way that the frequency of one harmonic remained fixed, the frequency of the other went up or down, and the missing fundamental moved in the opposite direction. Results show that, for partials of low harmonic order, most subjects tend to follow the frequency of the moving partial, whereas for partials of order 6 or higher, responses are divided more or less equally between tracking of the moving partial and tracking of the missing fundamental.