Pitch Perception

The major subjective perceptual attribute of sound is its pitch. Pitch is a subjective attribute of many simple and complex sound sources ranging from music, to speech, to most of the sounds of everyday life. The pitch of the sound from a source is related to both the sound's physical temporal properties and to its physical spectral properties. References to pitch perception have existed throughout recorded time and several theories of pitch processing have been developed over the past 150 years. Such theories fall into three categories: those based on the temporal properties of a sound's waveform, those based on the structure of a sound's frequency spectrum, and those that combine spectral and temporal processing. The spectral structure of sound that can be resolved by the auditory periphery forms the major component of spectral theories of pitch. Temporal theories of pitch depend on the temporal amplitude envelope of a complex sound or on a sound's temporal fine structure. Autocorrelation is often used in temporal models of pitch processing. A wealth of perceptual and neural data have been collected to support each theory of pitch processing and each theory continues as valid predictors of pitch perception.