Beyond fundamental frequency: Pitch height judgments in Indefinite-Pitch sounds

Pitch judgments for sounds lacking a harmonic spectrum and a clear fundamental frequency are inherently ambiguous. Using a sinusoidal adjustment task, 48 listeners provided pitch-height judgments for 19 non-harmonic sounds. Linear mixed-effects analyses showed that listeners could reliably differentiate pitch height across stimuli despite weak or absent periodic cues. A loudness-weighted spectral centroid emerged as a significant predictor of perceived pitch height, with reduced accuracy for sounds exhibiting greater spectrotemporal variability. These results indicate that perceptually weighted spectral information supports pitch-height judgments in non-harmonic sounds.