Presented together, tones reveal far finer pitch differences via beats than sequential comparison
Evidence
Experimentally, the JND is found by playing one stimulus after the other and asking listeners to indicate if they can hear a difference. If the stimuli were presented together, listeners would be able to detect a much finer difference because they would be able to hear beats (see Section 2.2). In that case, there is the potential for listeners to be able to detect differences right down to the point where the frequencies of the sine waves are identical and the beats disappear; this is the basis upon which musical instruments are tuned. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 866
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the earlier-books theme of fine auditory discrimination and how listening tools reveal thresholds; also links to beats material from Chapter 2 of this same book.
Related
- Simultaneously presented tones sharpen pitch discrimination down to beat disappearance (similarity 0.96)
- Sequential stimulus presentation sets the JND test while simultaneous tones reveal finer differences (similarity 0.84)
- Sequential tone comparison yields finer discrimination than modulation detection. (similarity 0.84)
- Combination tones beat against other near-pitched instruments unless masked (similarity 0.83)
- Noise intensity discrimination improves by pooling multiple frequency regions (similarity 0.82)
- Perceptual thresholds vary by listener but share common ordering (similarity 0.82)
- Only some combination tones are readily perceived, and none by all listeners. (similarity 0.81)
- Beats, roughness, and separation emerge at different frequency differences (similarity 0.81)
- Broadband noise yields better intensity discrimination than pure tones by engaging multiple frequency regions (similarity 0.80)
- Two close sine tones produce amplitude beats at their frequency difference (similarity 0.80)
- Frequency discrimination depends on pitch strength and worsens as pitch strength falls (similarity 0.80)
- Tuning systems determine whether auditory combination tones align with harmonic series (similarity 0.80)
- Difference noise generated by ear nonlinearities can be heard before the test tone itself (similarity 0.80)
- Perceived loudness of concurrent tones hinges on frequency separation via three distinct mechanisms (similarity 0.80)
- Tone-on-tone masking can be detected through beating and combination tones alone (similarity 0.80)