A single delayed sound repetition creates a perceived pitch even from white noise

Evidence

In fact, it takes just one repetition to give the sensation of pitch. You may have heard this many times without realizing it. Standing on hard ground or perhaps next to a building, sound can reach you by two different paths from a source. One is on a straight line through the air, and the other takes a single bounce before reaching your ears. Whatever you hear on the first path is quickly repeated on the second, with a delay controlled by the extra distance the sound travels on the second path and the speed of sound. Suppose the sound source is essentially white noise—for example, a jet overhead. White noise is characteristic of air jets and turbulence, and is an important source of sound, including in speech. (We discussed jet noise in section 14.7.) The perceived pitch f is given by the reciprocal of the delay time τ, f = 1/τ. If there is a 0.01 second delay of the bounced sound, a 100 Hz pitch can be heard, which, however, is far from being a musical tone. In fact, one quickly becomes accustomed to the 100 Hz coloration, and it helps to change the sound by moving closer to or farther from the ground, or by moving the source itself, changing the delay and the pitch. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2146

The pitch is equivalent to a sound whose f0 is equal to (1/delay), and the effect works for delays between approximately 1 ms and 10 ms depending on the listener, giving an equivalent f0 range for the effect of 100 to 1000 Hz. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 941

Categorization

• XREF: Echo/repetition pitch connects to the earlier chapters on filters and spectral analysis (figures 21.3, 23.27 referenced in the text). — connects to: Unambiguous pitch perception requires a periodically repeating acoustic waveform — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 774; Perceived musical pitch arises from regularly repeating acoustic pressure waves. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 774
• CANDY: A fun fact — white noise (like a jet) bounced off a building can take on a musical pitch shifted by your position.
• SEED: Article angle: the physics of ‘repetition pitch’ — how architecture accidentally turns noise into melody, from stairwell echoes to stadium acoustics.
• QUESTION: Why does the delay-generated pitch effect only work between 1 and 10 ms? What limits the perceptual system in this range?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2146; David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 941