A 40 dB level increase shifts pure-tone pitch by at most about 3 percent

Evidence

With complex tones, the effect is less well defined; Rossing (2001) suggests around 17 cents (0.17 of a semitone) for an intensity change between 65 dBSPL and 95 dBSPL. Rossing gives two suggestions as to where this effect could have musical consequences: (i) he cites Parkin (1974) to note that this pitch shift phenomenon is apparent when listening in a highly reverberant building to the release of a final loud organ chord that appears to sharpen as the sound level diminishes, and (ii) he suggests that the pitch shift observed for sounds with varying rates of waveform amplitude change, while f0 is kept constant, should be “taken into account when dealing with percussion instruments.” — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 921 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Raising a tone’s level lowers low-frequency pitch but raises high-frequency pitch; Raising a sound’s loudness shifts its perceived pitch except near 1-2 kHz.; Loudness changes shift perceived pitch; reverb conceals the effect musically (+1 more)

Related

• Pitch strength and loudness scale at sharply different rates with level changes. (similarity 0.92)
• Perceived pitch shifts measurably with loudness in frequency-dependent directions (similarity 0.91)
• Pitch correlates with frequency but is also slightly level-dependent (similarity 0.88)
• Raising a sound’s loudness shifts its perceived pitch except near 1-2 kHz. (similarity 0.87)
• Loudness changes shift perceived pitch; reverb conceals the effect musically (similarity 0.87)
• Natural complex sounds make level changes easier to hear than pure tones do. (similarity 0.84)
• Pitch strength rises only modestly with level while loudness explodes. (similarity 0.84)
• Raising a tone’s level lowers low-frequency pitch but raises high-frequency pitch (similarity 0.83)
• Raising the level of a complex tone shifts its pitch downward. (similarity 0.83)
• Sound intensity changes perceived pitch of pure tones except near 1–2 kHz (similarity 0.83)
• Volume changes alter perceived frequency balance, not just loudness (similarity 0.82)
• Raising intensity lowers pitch at low frequencies but raises it at high frequencies. (similarity 0.82)
• Raising low-pass noise level measurably raises its perceived pitch (similarity 0.81)
• A ten-phon level reduction halves perceived loudness (similarity 0.81)
• Loudness slightly but measurably alters perceived pitch of tones (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Raising a sound’s loudness shifts its perceived pitch except near 1-2 kHz. #corroborates (0.82)
• Raising a tone’s level lowers low-frequency pitch but raises high-frequency pitch #corroborates (0.80)
• Perceived pitch shifts measurably with loudness in frequency-dependent directions #corroborates (0.78) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 921
• Loudness changes shift perceived pitch; reverb conceals the effect musically #corroborates (0.75)