ON THE DUIFHUIS PITCH EFFECT

An effect discovered by Duifhuis [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 48, 888-893 (197 0)], wherein an omitted high harmonic of a periodic complex tone is fo und to have an audible pitch, is extended to a variety of new broadban d signal conditions. The effect is found to exist for flat spectra and spectra decreasing at 6 dB/octave, independent of phases as long as t hey are constant. The effect exists for alternating phases and Schroed er phases. It can generate a missing-fundamental pitch. Pitch and loud ness matching experiments support the status of the omitted harmonic a s an objective tone in the signal. Further experiments using narrower bands challenge the traditional explanation for the effect, which attr ibutes it to short-term frequency analysis by peripheral auditory filt ers. Instead, the experiments suggest that different peripheral channe ls must be combined, maintaining some phase information, to generate t he effect. (C) 1997 Acoustical Society of America.