Spatial properties of perceived pitch: influence on reaching movements

We present three experiments that show a clear influence of pitch on reaching movements. The first experiment shows that when there are incompatibilities between the spatial representations of target coordinates and perceived pitches, response times are longer than when spatial representations are congruous. The second experiment shows that pitch can influence motor responses, biasing their direction. The third experiment shows that in the absence of any other spatial cues, tones are assigned spatial coordinates based on frequency. Our results suggest that pitch may indeed have inherent spatial properties, and that these properties may affect movement planning and execution.