The existence region supports a place-based harmonic template model of pitch

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: Defines the harmonic template model (a variant of the place model) and shows how it explains residue-pitch existence regions — precisely the theory/model content the reader asked for.
• XREF: Shows the place vs. temporal coding debate from earlier chapters being resolved in favor of place coding for this phenomenon — a model-comparison the reader will want to track across chapters.