Hearing a pitch with no corresponding partial is perception, not auditory illusion

Evidence

J. F. Schouten of the University of Eindhoven coined the term residue pitch in 1940 for the presence of a perceived pitch that is missing a partial at the same frequency, or even any nearby harmonics of that frequency. Giving a concept a name is extremely important, but apparently this came so late in the (by then) nearly 100-year-old controversy that people still trip over the issues. Residue pitch is a better term than the commonly used missing fundamental effect, since the latter phrase implies some sort of auditory illusion, which is not correct. The residue pitch is no more an illusion than is a yellow spot of light, when in fact the spot is made up of overlapping red and green beams. The result is indistinguishable to our eyes from a single yellow beam. This is not an illusion; this is the way our visual system is built and is supposed to act. So it is with the residue pitch: we hear a 100 Hz pitch, whether or not the 100 Hz partial is there. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2030

That sensation is absent, it cannot be “heard out,” even though a 100 Hz pitch is definitely heard. Once again, pitch is not partial, a fact that both Helmholtz and Seebeck failed to see clearly. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2051

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines residue pitch and explains why it is preferable to ‘missing fundamental effect’ via the yellow-light analogy.
• XREF: The yellow/red-green beam analogy connects to color perception debates (e.g., how the brain constructs color) from vision research familiar in psychology of perception.
• QUESTION: Why did it take nearly a century to name this phenomenon, and what did the naming change about the debate?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2030; Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2051