Missing-fundamental pitch does not involve hearing an actual sinusoidal partial

Evidence

Helmholtz was attracted to the idea of nonlinear sound generation in the ear. His thinking was that if we are frequency analyzers, we cannot hear a particular frequency or a tone unless it is physically present. Faced with the absence of the first partial in some complex musical tones—the residue pitch effect—Helmholtz felt compelled to restore the lowest partial, to require its physical presence, by saying that it was produced by nonlinear effects based on the presence of the higher partials. This idea is flawed, since the residue pitch is not actually accompanied by the ability to hear out a sinusoidal partial at the frequency of the pitch. In other words, Helmholtz’s phantom partial is not even perceptually present. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2284

Categorization

• XREF: Residue pitch connects to the earlier ‘phantom tones’ premise of this chapter and to periodicity-pitch debates covered in neighboring sections on missing fundamental. — connects to: The ear perceives a virtual pitch not physically present in a sound’s components — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 859; The kettledrum outputs a missing-harmonic series yet still conveys a clear pitch — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1306