QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, November 12, 2008, 28(46):11925-11938; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3137-08.2008

This Article Free Access Article Free Access Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Sayles, M. Articles by Winter, I. M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Sayles, M. Articles by Winter, I. M.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Ambiguous Pitch and the Temporal Representation of Inharmonic Iterated Rippled Noise in the Ventral Cochlear Nucleus

Mark Sayles and Ian M. Winter

Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing, The Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge CB2 3EG, United Kingdom

Correspondence should be addressed to Mark Sayles. Email: ms417{at}cam.ac.uk or Email: sayles.m{at}gmail.com

Neural coding of the pitch of complex sounds is vital for animals' ability to communicate and to perceptually organize natural acoustic scenes. Harmonic complex sounds typically have a well defined pitch corresponding to their fundamental frequency, whereas inharmonic sounds can exhibit pitch ambiguity: their pitch can have more than one value. Iterated rippled noise (IRN), a common "pitch stimulus," is generated from broadband noise by a cascade of delay-and-add steps, with the delayed noise phase-shifted by degrees. By varying , the (in)harmonicity, and therefore the pitch ambiguity, of IRN can be manipulated. Recordings were made from single-units in the ventral cochlear nucleus of anesthetized guinea pigs in response to IRN and complex tones, systematically varying the inharmonicity. In their all-order interspike interval distributions, primary-like and chopper units tuned within the phase-locking range of best frequencies represent the waveform temporal fine structure (which varies with ). In contrast, those units tuned to higher frequencies represent the temporal-envelope modulation (independent of ). We show a temporal representation of ambiguous pitch for IRN and complex tones based on responses to the stimulus fine structure. Within the dominance region for pitch this representation follows the predictions of classic human behavioral experiments and provides a unifying contribution to possible neuro-temporal explanations for the pitch shift and pitch ambiguity associated with many inharmonic sounds.

Key words: pitch ambiguity; complex tone; inharmonic sounds; iterated rippled noise; cochlear nucleus; interspike intervals; auditory brainstem

---

Received May 11, 2008; revised Sept. 28, 2008; accepted Oct. 1, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Mark Sayles. Email: ms417{at}cam.ac.uk or Email: sayles.m{at}gmail.com

This article has been cited by other articles:

				W. A. Yost Pitch perception Atten Percept Psychophys, November 1, 2009; 71(8): 1701 - 1715. [Abstract] [PDF]

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help