Pitch perception
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Attending to Pitch Information Inhibits Processing of Pitch Information: The Curious Case of Amusia Open
In normal listeners, the tonal rules of music guide musical expectancy. In a minority of individuals, known as amusics, the processing of tonality is disordered, which results in severe musical deficits. It has been shown that the tonal ru…
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Contributions of Electric and Acoustic Hearing to Bimodal Speech and Music Perception Open
Cochlear implant (CI) users have difficulty understanding speech in noisy listening conditions and perceiving music. Aided residual acoustic hearing in the contralateral ear can mitigate these limitations. The present study examined contri…
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Remixing music using source separation algorithms to improve the musical experience of cochlear implant users Open
Music perception remains rather poor for many Cochlear Implant (CI) users due to the users' deficient pitch perception. However, comprehensible vocals and simple music structures are well perceived by many CI users. In previous studies res…
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The pitch of babies’ cries predicts their voice pitch at age 5 Open
Voice pitch (fundamental frequency, F 0 ) is a key dimension of our voice that varies between sexes after puberty, and also among individuals of the same sex both before and after puberty. While a recent longitudinal study indicates that i…
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Individual Monitoring of Vocal Effort With Relative Fundamental Frequency: Relationships With Aerodynamics and Listener Perception Open
Purpose The acoustic measure relative fundamental frequency (RFF) was investigated as a potential objective measure to track variations in vocal effort within and across individuals. Method Twelve speakers with healthy voices created purpo…
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Deactivating Cochlear Implant Electrodes Based on Pitch Information for Users of the ACE Strategy Open
There is a wide range in performance for cochlear implant (CI) users and there is some evidence to suggest that implant fitting can be modified to improve performance if electrodes that do not provide distinct pitch information are de-acti…
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Across-species differences in pitch perception are consistent with differences in cochlear filtering Open
Pitch perception is critical for recognizing speech, music and animal vocalizations, but its neurobiological basis remains unsettled, in part because of divergent results across species. We investigated whether species-specific differences…
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Speaking a tone language enhances musical pitch perception in 3–5‐year‐olds Open
Young children learn multiple cognitive skills concurrently (e.g., language and music). Evidence is limited as to whether and how learning in one domain affects that in another during early development. Here we assessed whether exposure to…
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Integrating Voice Quality Cues in the Pitch Perception of Speech and Non-speech Utterances Open
Pitch perception plays a crucial role in speech processing. Since F0 is highly ambiguous and variable in the speech signal, effective pitch-range perception is important in perceiving the intended linguistic pitch targets. This study argue…
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Superoptimal Perceptual Integration Suggests a Place-Based Representation of Pitch at High Frequencies Open
Pitch, the perceptual correlate of sound repetition rate or frequency, plays an important role in speech perception, music perception, and listening in complex acoustic environments. Despite the perceptual importance of pitch, the neural m…
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Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch Open
Pitch variation is pervasive in speech, regardless of the language to which infants are exposed. Lexical tone is influenced by general sensitivity to pitch. We examined whether the development in lexical tone perception may develop in para…
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How musical experience affects tone perception efficiency by musicians of tonal and non-tonal speakers? Open
The effect of musical training strengthens categorical perception more consistently in non-tonal speakers than tonal speakers. Overall, musicians benefit more from increased stimulus duration, due perhaps to their greater sensitivity to te…
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A common computational principle for vibrotactile pitch perception in mouse and human Open
We live surrounded by vibrations generated by moving objects. These oscillatory stimuli propagate through solid substrates, are sensed by mechanoreceptors in our body and give rise to perceptual attributes such as vibrotactile pitch (i.e. …
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Pitch perception and production in congenital amusia: Evidence from Cantonese speakers Open
This study investigated pitch perception and production in speech and music in individuals with congenital amusia (a disorder of musical pitch processing) who are native speakers of Cantonese, a tone language with a highly complex tonal sy…
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Action-Perception Coupling and Near Transfer: Listening to Melodies after Piano Practice Triggers Sequence-Specific Representations in the Auditory-Motor Network Open
Understanding how perception and action are coupled in the brain has important implications for training, rehabilitation, and brain–machine interfaces. Ideomotor theory postulates that willed actions are represented through previously expe…
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Encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex Open
Melody is a core component of music in which discrete pitches are serially arranged to convey emotion and meaning. Perception varies along several pitch-based dimensions: (i) the absolute pitch of notes, (ii) the difference in pitch betwee…
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Pre-target neural oscillations predict variability in the detection of small pitch changes Open
Pitch discrimination is important for language or music processing. Previous studies indicate that auditory perception depends on pre-target neural activity. However, so far the pre-target electrophysiological conditions which enable the d…
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Clinically Paired Electrodes Are Often Not Perceived as Pitch Matched Open
For bilateral cochlear implant (CI) patients, electrodes that receive the same frequency allocation often stimulate locations in the left and right ear that do not yield the same perceived pitch, resulting in a pitch mismatch. This pitch m…
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Place and Temporal Cues in Cochlear Implant Pitch and Melody Perception Open
The present study compared pitch and melody perception using cochlear place of excitation and temporal cues in six adult nucleus cochlear implant (CI) recipients. The stimuli were synthesized tones presented through a loudspeaker, and reci…
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Early cortical processing of pitch height and the role of adaptation and musicality Open
Pitch is an important perceptual feature; however, it is poorly understood how its cortical correlates are shaped by absolute vs relative fundamental frequency (f0), and by neural adaptation. In this study, we assessed transient and sustai…
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A Tendency Towards Details? Inconsistent Results on Auditory and Visual Local-To-Global Processing in Absolute Pitch Musicians Open
Absolute pitch, the ability to name or produce a musical tone without a reference, is a rare ability which is often related to early musical training and genetic components. However, it remains a matter of debate why absolute pitch is rela…
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On the Perceptual Subprocess of Absolute Pitch Open
Absolute pitch (AP) is the rare ability of musicians to identify the pitch of tonal sound without external reference. While there have been behavioral and neuroimaging studies on the characteristics of AP, how the AP is implemented in huma…
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Combined neural and behavioural measures of temporal pitch perception in cochlear implant users Open
Four experiments measured the perceptual and neural correlates of the temporal pattern of electrical stimulation applied to one cochlear-implant (CI) electrode, for several subjects. Neural effects were estimated from the electrically evok…
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When pitch Accents Encode Speaker Commitment: Evidence from French Intonation Open
Recent studies on a variety of languages have shown that a speaker’s commitment to the propositional content of his or her utterance can be encoded, among other strategies, by pitch accent types. Since prior research mainly relied on lexic…
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The perception of complex pitch in cochlear implants: A comparison of monopolar and tripolar stimulation Open
Cochlear implant listeners typically perform poorly in tasks of complex pitch perception (e.g., musical pitch and voice pitch). One explanation is that wide current spread during implant activation creates channel interactions that may int…
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On Older Listeners' Ability to Perceive Dynamic Pitch Open
Purpose Natural speech comes with variation in pitch, which serves as an important cue for speech recognition. The present study investigated older listeners' dynamic pitch perception with a focus on interindividual variability. In particu…
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Spatial metaphor and the development of cross-domain mappings in early childhood. Open
Spatial language is often used metaphorically to describe other domains, including time (long sound) and pitch (high sound). How does experience with these metaphors shape the ability to associate space with other domains? Here, we tested …
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A Neuronal Network Model for Pitch Selectivity and Representation Open
Pitch is a perceptual correlate of periodicity. Sounds with distinct spectra can elicit the same pitch. Despite the importance of pitch perception, understanding the cellular mechanism of pitch perception is still a major challenge and a m…
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Perception of Musical Tension in Cochlear Implant Listeners Open
Despite the difficulties experienced by cochlear implant (CI) users in perceiving pitch and harmony, it is not uncommon to see CI users listening to music, or even playing an instrument. Listening to music is a complex process that relies …
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Adaptation to pitch-altered feedback is independent of one’s own voice pitch sensitivity Open
Monitoring voice pitch is a fine-tuned process in daily conversations as conveying accurately the linguistic and affective cues in a given utterance depends on the precise control of phonation and intonation. This monitoring is thought to …