Dominance of missing fundamental versus spectrally cued pitch: Individual differences for complex tones with unresolved harmonics

In a two-alternative, forced-choice experiment, subjects had to compare the pitches of two sounds, A and B. Each sound was composed of four successive harmonics of a fundamental frequency between 100 to 250 Hz, added in cosine or Schroder phase. The harmonic frequencies of A were lower than those of B; the missing fundamental frequency of A was higher than that of B. The dominance of the missing fundamental versus the spectrally cued pitch-a pitch percept corresponding to spectral components-was measured as a function of n(A), the lowest harmonic in A. The pitch percept is dominated by the missing fundamental if the harmonics are resolved (n(A) <7). If the harmonics become unresolved and are added in Schroder phase, the dominance shifts to a spectrally cued pitch (7 <n(A) <13; 75% of the subjects). In the cosine phase condition, many subjects could detect the fundamental pitch well into the unresolved harmonic range (n(A) > 20). For others, the transition was in the realm of partly resolved harmonics. This shows that the temporal envelope modulation of stimuli with only four unresolved harmonics can give a relatively clear fundamental pitch percept. However, this percept varies considerably among subjects. (C) 2004 Acoustical Society of America.