Pitch measurement inherently requires subjective listener judgments

Evidence

Pitch relates to the perceived position of a sound on a scale from low to high, and its formal definition by the American National Standards Institute (1960) is couched in these terms as: “pitch is that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds may be ordered on a scale extending from low to high.” The measurement of pitch is therefore “subjective” because it requires a human listener (the “subject”) to make a perceptual judgment. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 824

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ANSI 1960 formal definition of pitch, plus the consequential point that pitch is inherently subjective, not physically measurable off a meter.
• XREF: connects to: Psychoacoustic testing measures subjective listener opinions under controlled independent variables — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2360