Seebeck wrongly believed higher partials could reinforce the perceived fundamental partial.

Evidence

Before Ohm’s work, the sinusoid-pure partial connection had been blurry in several respects. Some observers thought that waveforms other than sinusoidal could also be perceived as pure partials, as long as they were periodic. August Seebeck fell into this trap, when trying to explain how it is that 100 Hz wins so handily in the simple “competition” for perceived pitch between 100 and 200 Hz (and higher) pure partials when they are both present. Seebeck supposed that somehow the 200 Hz component could add to the strength of the 100 Hz pure tone—that is, that the 100 Hz pure tone could be made louder by adding in some higher sinusoid of shorter but commensurate period. Seebeck arrived at this notion by throwing the presence of the period-reinforcing upper partials onto the lowest partial. He could not have meant this in a mathematical sense, since it violates Fourier’s theorems, but rather in a physiologic sense. However, a strong sense of a 100 Hz pitch that accompanies the series 200, 300, 400, … Hz is not that of a 100 Hz fundamental sinusoidal partial. That sensation is absent, it cannot be “heard out,” even though a 100 Hz pitch is definitely heard. Once again, pitch is not partial, a fact that both Helmholtz and Seebeck failed to see clearly. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2051

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• QUESTION: Why does 100 Hz win the pitch competition against 200 Hz when both are present — the chapter gestures at dominance rules not fully specified here.

Related

• Fourier analysis alone cannot explain perceived pitch of a tone (similarity 0.85)
• Perceived pitch persists even when the matching frequency partial is absent (similarity 0.85)
• Helmholtz never clearly separated perceived pitch from the presence of a matching physical partial (similarity 0.83)
• Highest common factor of partials encodes perceived pitch (similarity 0.83)
• Correct theories of pitch perception were suppressed by Helmholtz’s authority (similarity 0.82)
• Ohm’s acoustical law held that a pitch requires physical power at that frequency (similarity 0.82)
• Helmholtz’s nonlinear-interaction theory of missing fundamentals is untenable (similarity 0.81)
• Helmholtz wrongly assumed every heard pitch requires a physically present partial (similarity 0.81)
• Missing-fundamental pitch does not involve hearing an actual sinusoidal partial (similarity 0.81)
• A pitch can be heard even when only its higher harmonics are present (similarity 0.81)
• Higher partials dominate pitch because their sharper autocorrelation peaks win (similarity 0.81)
• Mixing noise with its own delayed copy can create a sense of pitch (similarity 0.80)
• Fourier analysis’s mathematical elegance misled Ohm and Helmholtz (similarity 0.80)
• Pitch can be perceived even when no partial exists at that frequency (similarity 0.80)
• Stretching partials while keeping fundamentals fixed sounds horrible due to partial collisions (similarity 0.80)