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The climb of absolute pitch



Hi Oded,

Your three-step reasoning makes sense but, indeed, it should be experimentally verified. As to the age-related change of neural oscillations, Art Wingfield believes that the brain "slows down" as we get older. Such a slowing-down could also explain the upward AP shift because our reference would shift downward. How this central effect squares with the peripheral, BM-stiffening effect is unknown but, again, could be studied in the lab.

-Pierre

On 12/1/12 5:17 AM, "Oded Ghitza" <oghitza@xxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Pierre,
If (1) you accept Julius's model of pitch perception, (2) interpret -- as he did -- the central component of the model as a mechanism that adjusts f0 of an internal harmonic sieve to the point where the MMSE between the sieve and the input pattern is minimum, and (3) assume that such mechanism is realized by a neuronal circuitry with oscillations ("rhythms") at the core (maybe related to Langer, in the late 80's and in the context of pitch perception, who measured "temporal rings" in chicks); then, a possible way to examine the phenomenon (whether perceived pitch should go up or down, in particular), is to look at how the frequency range of neuronal oscillations change with age. 
--
Oded.