Subject: Re: The climb of absolute pitch From: Bob Masta <audio@xxxxxxxx> Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2012 08:47:36 -0500 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Can someone explain the supposed mechanism behind neural timing and pitch shift? I don't understand what is being proposed. As I undestand it, since pitch is encoded as *place* along the BM, the neurons respond with a firing rate that encodes *loudness* for their particular frequency place. The firing rate does not encode the frequency of the sound itself. What am I missing here? Best regards, Bob Masta ============= On 1 Dec 2012 at 9:50, Pierre Divenyi wrote: > 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@xxxxxxxx> 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. > > > > > > > Bob Masta D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis www.daqarta.com Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator Science with your sound card!