Helmholtz wrongly assumed every heard pitch requires a physically present partial

Evidence

Listen carefully for the presence of a 200 Hz sinusoidal partial with only partials 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, and 1400 present. You won’t hear a 200 Hz partial at low sound intensities, yet a 200 Hz pitch will prevail. The 200 Hz partial is not there in the original sound, nor is it created for us by any part of the hearing system from the outer ear to the auditory cortex. What is created by that system is the sensation we call pitch. Pitch is not partial. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2031 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In figure 3.11, the smaller fork is vibrating faster than the larger fork by factor of exactly 3/2. Using f1 = 200 and f2 = 300, the displacement of the smaller tines reads … Notice that it is perfectly periodic. Its frequency is 100 Hz, lower than either the 200 Hz or the 300 Hz component. The two waves return to their starting phase at the same time after three periods of the 300 Hz wave and two periods of the 200 Hz wave; this time is 0.01 second, corresponding to a frequency of 100 Hz. Here is the first hint of a crucial issue, one that extends to theories of music and hearing. If any single pitch can be associated with this combination, it is certainly 100 Hz, but there is no 100 Hz frequency present at all. One can also easily “hear out,” as it is called, the 200 and 300 Hz “atomic” components as individual sinusoidal pure tones embedded in the “molecular” whole. There is much more evidence to present regarding pitch perception, and we leave this subject for a full discussion in chapter 23. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 323 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Helmholtz failed to treat pitch as one of his own epistemological tokens.; Correct theories of pitch perception were suppressed by Helmholtz’s authority; Pitch can be perceived even when no partial exists at that frequency — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2031 (+11 more)

Related

• Correct theories of pitch perception were suppressed by Helmholtz’s authority (similarity 0.96)
• Pitch can be perceived even when no partial exists at that frequency (similarity 0.91)
• Helmholtz never clearly separated perceived pitch from the presence of a matching physical partial (similarity 0.91)
• A perceived pitch can exist with no partial at its own frequency. (similarity 0.90)
• Ohm’s acoustical law held that a pitch requires physical power at that frequency (similarity 0.90)
• The ear perceives a virtual pitch not physically present in a sound’s components (similarity 0.89)
• Highest common factor of partials encodes perceived pitch (similarity 0.89)
• The central debate in pitch perception is whether humans are essentially walking Fourier analyzers (similarity 0.88)
• Helmholtz’s nonlinear-interaction theory of missing fundamentals is untenable (similarity 0.88)
• A bell’s perceived pitch is usually absent from its actual partials (similarity 0.88)
• Pitch is perceptual while frequency is acoustic, and not all sounds have pitch (similarity 0.87)
• A combined waveform can produce a perceived pitch absent from its actual frequency components (similarity 0.87)
• Mixing noise with its own delayed copy can create a sense of pitch (similarity 0.87)
• Place theory cannot account for level-independent pitch, so other mechanisms must operate (similarity 0.86)
• Missing-fundamental pitch does not involve hearing an actual sinusoidal partial (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Pitch can be perceived even when no partial exists at that frequency #corroborates (0.92) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2031
• A combined waveform can produce a perceived pitch absent from its actual frequency components #corroborates (0.90) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 323
• A bell’s perceived pitch is usually absent from its actual partials #exemplifies (0.90)
• Listeners reconstruct a perceived pitch that is not physically present #corroborates (0.88)
• Correct theories of pitch perception were suppressed by Helmholtz’s authority #expands (0.85)
• The residue pitch refuted Helmholtz’s place theory of pitch percept. #exemplifies (0.85) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1286
• Ohm’s acoustical law held that a pitch requires physical power at that frequency #qualifies (0.82)
• Adding higher partials can drop the perceived pitch of a tone #exemplifies (0.80) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2067
• Pitch maps to repetition frequency but is not a simple physical property. #expands (0.80)
• Place coding of fundamental pitch fails at high frequencies when harmonics smear together #expands (0.78)
• Place theory cannot account for level-independent pitch, so other mechanisms must operate #expands (0.78)
• Pitch is perceptual while frequency is acoustic, and not all sounds have pitch #expands (0.75)
• Place and timing theories fail to explain some complex pitch perception phenomena #expands (0.75) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 907