Some Observations on Pitch and Frequency
Hallowell Davis, S. Richard Silverman, D. R. McAuliffe · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1951
“Tone-pips” were produced by brief rectangular electrical pulses being delivered through two sound-effects filters in cascade with both high and low cut-offs set at 2000 cps. Nearly all of the acoustic energy of the final signal was found to be concentrated in a band about an octave wide and centering at 2000 cps. The pulsing frequency was varied independently between 90 and 150 pips per second. Listeners describe the resulting sound as a “metallic buzz.” Listeners vary greatly in their ability to identify the two “pitches” present in this sound and in the accuracy with which they match with a pure tone either the pulsing frequency (about 130 per second) or the band-pass frequency (2000 cps in the present series). Errors of exactly one octave are particularly common. In the theoretical discussion we argue that the “pitch” of a pure tone is a double attribute compounded of “buzz” (correlated with frequency of volleys of nerve impulses) and “body” (correlated with position of maximum stimulation on the basilar membrane).