Auditory Gestalt perception mirrors vision through spectral-pitch contours

Evidence

The Gestalt principle is very well known from vision. However, it also seems to play an important role in musical acoustics. The concept of hierarchical processing of categories assumes that Gestalt perception is entirely dependent on controlled and categorized sensory representations. It also assumes that perception is organized in hierarchical layers, in each of which one and the same type of processing is established. It seems that the perception of primary contours in vision has its equivalent in the auditory perception of spectral pitches. It is interesting that spectral pitches are processed in a relatively early stage of auditory processing. In vision, the contours lead to what we call Gestalt. In music, it is the pitch that finally leads to Gestalt. Thereby, spectral pitch plays the more important role whereas virtual pitches are equivalent to “illusory” visual contours. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043

Categorization

• XREF: The vision-audition Gestalt parallel connects to the reader’s interest in neuroscience behind psychoacoustics; virtual pitch as ‘illusory contour’ recalls pitch perception theories in chapter 2 of this same book. — connects to: Virtual pitch is extracted from separately perceived spectral pitches by Gestalt-style recognition; Gestalt grouping principles predict relative pitch perception performance; Pitch perception involves both spectral and temporal representations of sound — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4638 (+6 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043

Broader Connections

• Gestalt grouping principles predict relative pitch perception performance #expands (0.90)
• Binaural illusions reveal the brain imposes Gestalt grouping on incoming pitches #exemplifies (0.80)
• Relative pitch recognition is an auditory case of translation-invariant object perception #expands (0.80) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5265
• Pitch perception involves both spectral and temporal representations of sound #qualifies (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4638
• Machine pattern recognition mirrors Gestalt grouping via feature vectors and similarity metrics #expands (0.75)
• The auditory spectrum differs from the physical power spectrum in resolution and shape #qualifies (0.70)