High-frequency pitch imprecision reflects unfamiliarity and place coding, not phase locking alone

Evidence

Burns and Feth ( 1983 ) had three musically trained subjects adjust various musical intervals for reference frequencies of 1 kHz and 10 kHz. For the same musical intervals as used in the present study, SDs in their data were a factor of 1.6–11.7 (mean of 4) times larger for the 10-kHz reference than for the 1-kHz reference. Thus, the increase in SDs for the 10-kHz frequency was larger than that observed here for the ZTs. Burns and Feth ( 1983 ) interpreted their results in terms of phase locking, and a decrease thereof with increasing frequency. The present results suggest that their relatively large increase in SDs at 10 kHz reflects the combined effect of lack of familiarity with high-frequency pure tones and the transition from a temporal code to a place code. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5422