The ear perceives a virtual pitch not physically present in a sound’s components

Evidence

As an example of such a nonharmonic sound, Schouten in one of his later experiments produced sounds whose component frequencies were 1040 Hz, 1240 Hz and 1440 Hz and found that the perceived pitch was approximately 207 Hz (consider track 4C on the accompanying CD). The f0 for these components, based on the minimum spacing between the components (Method 2), is 200 Hz. Table 3.4 shows the result of applying Method 3 (searching for the highest common factor of these three components) up to an integer divisor of 10. Schouten’s proposal can be interpreted in terms of this table by looking for the closest set of values in the table that would be consistent with the three components being true harmonics and taking their average to give an estimate of f0. In this case, taking 1040 Hz as the fifth “harmonic,” 1240 Hz as the sixth “harmonic” and 1440 Hz as the seventh “harmonic” gives 208 Hz, 207 Hz and 206 Hz, respectively. The average of these values is 207 Hz, and Schouten referred to the pitch perceived in such a situation as the “residue pitch” or “pitch of the residue.” It is also sometimes referred to as “virtual pitch.” … By way of a coda to this discussion, it is interesting to note that these components—1040 Hz, 1240 Hz and 1440 Hz—do, in fact, have a true f0 of 40 Hz, of which they are the twenty-sixth, thirty-first and thirty-sixth harmonics, which would appear if the table were continued well over to the right. However, the auditory system appears to find an f0 for which the components present are adjacent harmonics. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 859

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘residue pitch’/‘virtual pitch’ as the perceived f0 inferred from nonadjacent partials where the true fundamental differs.
• BMF: A synthesized sound whose components only align as adjacent harmonics of 207 Hz, while their true fundamental is 40 Hz, evokes the way the ear constructs a stable world from sparse cues - the kind of perceptual inference Veyrene in Jane Eyre and other unreliable-narrator figures make from fragmentary evidence.
• XREF: connects to: Listeners reconstruct a perceived pitch that is not physically present; A combined waveform can produce a perceived pitch absent from its actual frequency components — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 323; Perceived pitch can arise from harmonics alone even when no actual fundamental sounds — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1651 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• A combined waveform can produce a perceived pitch absent from its actual frequency components #corroborates (0.97) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 323
• Pitch can be heard even when no sound component exists at that frequency #corroborates (0.97) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2018
• Listeners reconstruct a perceived pitch that is not physically present #corroborates (0.95)
• Perceived pitch can arise from harmonics alone even when no actual fundamental sounds #exemplifies (0.90) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1651
• Pitch can be perceived even when no partial exists at that frequency #corroborates (0.90) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2031
• Missing-fundamental pitch does not involve hearing an actual sinusoidal partial #exemplifies (0.90) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2284
• Inharmonic tone complexes can yield multiple or virtual perceived pitches #expands (0.85)
• Unambiguous pitch perception requires a periodically repeating acoustic waveform #contradicts (0.75) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 774