The sensation of a real tone may depend partly on internally generated neural signals

Evidence

What has this anomaly got to do with pitch perception or phantom tones? The point is that if the auditory cortex can send symphonies that aren’t there, why couldn’t it more routinely send us the sensation of a “real” tone, which might sound like a single partial or perhaps a complex tone, and which isn’t physically present but still represents some aspect of the real sound being processed? Sending such a sensation might serve a purpose or it might be a side effect of complex processing algorithms. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2289

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: do phantom tones that represent real aspects of sound serve a specific processing purpose, or are they side effects?