Virtual pitch is extracted from separately perceived spectral pitches by Gestalt-style recognition

Evidence

The Gestalt principle is very well known from vision. However, it also seems to play an important role in musical acoustics. The concept of hierarchical processing of categories assumes that Gestalt perception is entirely dependent on controlled and categorized sensory representations. It also assumes that perception is organized in hierarchical layers, in each of which one and the same type of processing is established. It seems that the perception of primary contours in vision has its equivalent in the auditory perception of spectral pitches. It is interesting that spectral pitches are processed in a relatively early stage of auditory processing. In vision, the contours lead to what we call Gestalt. In music, it is the pitch that finally leads to Gestalt. Thereby, spectral pitch plays the more important role whereas virtual pitches are equivalent to “illusory” visual contours. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Complex-tone pitch tracks the spectral pitch of lower components — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 706; Gestalt grouping principles predict relative pitch perception performance; Auditory Gestalt perception mirrors vision through spectral-pitch contours — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043 (+2 more)

Related

• Auditory Gestalt perception mirrors vision through spectral-pitch contours (similarity 0.95)
• Auditory grouping by pitch proximity can override melodic continuation perception (similarity 0.84)
• Gestalt grouping principles predict relative pitch perception performance (similarity 0.83)
• Complex-tone pitch tracks the spectral pitch of lower components (similarity 0.82)
• Virtual pitch arises only for certain fundamental-to-lowest-component combinations (similarity 0.80)
• Listeners perceive missing fundamentals from the harmonics that remain (similarity 0.80)
• The ear perceives a virtual pitch not physically present in a sound’s components (similarity 0.80)
• Listeners reconstruct a perceived pitch that is not physically present (similarity 0.80)
• Virtual pitch only arises under specific combinations of fundamental and lowest-component frequency. (similarity 0.79)
• Gestalt grouping principles apply to hearing as well as vision (similarity 0.78)
• Machine pattern recognition mirrors Gestalt grouping via feature vectors and similarity metrics (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Gestalt grouping principles predict relative pitch perception performance #expands (0.85)
• Listeners reconstruct a perceived pitch that is not physically present #exemplifies (0.82)
• Auditory Gestalt perception mirrors vision through spectral-pitch contours #exemplifies (0.80) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2043
• Binaural illusions reveal the brain imposes Gestalt grouping on incoming pitches #expands (0.78)