Resolved low-numbered harmonics are required to encode pitch by place

Evidence

The residue pitch effectively renders Helmholtz’s view of pitch perception for complex tones obsolete, and leaves two possibilities for pitch perception of complex tones. The variant of the place model, the harmonic template model, would require stimulus components to be resolved in order to extract the pitch of a sound. The existence region of the residue pitch supports this model. Recall that when a complex stimulus is presented, only the low-numbered harmonics have a robust representation in the excitation pattern (see Figure 6–7). Note, in particular, that Figure 6–7 shows that only harmonics 1 to 8 or 1 to 10 have visible peaks in the excitation pattern, and this number does not vary much with fundamental frequency. When harmonics 1 to 10 are removed from the excitation pattern, only the high-frequency smeared portion of the excitation pattern remains. This stimulus, then, would not evoke a pitch based on the place code, and the findings on the residue pitch are consistent with this interpretation. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1294

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the harmonic template model and its requirement that components be resolved to extract pitch.
• DEEPTHINKING: The tie between the excitation-pattern limit (only harmonics 1-10 produce resolved peaks, nearly independent of F0) and the perceptual bound at ~10 harmonics is a tight, non-obvious mechanistic correspondence worth re-examining.
• ADDENDUM: Parallels ‘Grafting & Growth’ style mechanistic reasoning but for psychoacoustics; the resolved-harmonic ceiling is a strong explanatory constraint.