Pitch of narrow-band signals

This study investigated the pitch elicited by complex narrow bandwidth signals. These signals ranged from two-component tones to multiple-component approximations of narrow-band noise. All were contained within 10-, 20-, or 50-Hz bandwidths. Listeners were asked to adjust the frequency of a pure tone to match the pitch they heard in a given complex signal. A simple model suggests that the pitch of these complex signals should match that of a pure tone set to the center frequency. For a majority of the signals, the performance of three of our four listeners was not different from the model predictions. However, the two-component signals were apparently resolved and two simultaneous pitches were heard by some listeners. Our fourth listener heard two sequential pitches in many of the complex signals. We are unable to account for that performance although the pitch matches were very repeatable. These results have implications for an understanding of pitch coding and auditory spectral resolution.