Perception of the pitch of unresolved harmonics by 3- and 7-month-old human infants

Lau, Bonnie K.; Werner, Lynne A.

doi:10.1121/1.4887464

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…This performance difference suggests that the salience of pitch in the context of constant spectral variation may be higher for infants than adults. This finding is consistent with previous studies showing that adult listeners have difficulty responding on the basis of pitch in the presence of timbre variation (Moore and Glasberg, 1990;Micheyl and Oxenham, 2004;Borchert et al, 2011), which was also observed in Lau and Werner (2014). Further investigations are required, however, to determine why this "timbre confusion" does not affect infants.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

Lau

Lalonde

Oster

et al. 2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Although recent results show that 3-month-olds can discriminate complex tones by their missing fundamental, it is arguable whether they are discriminating on the basis of a perceived pitch. A defining characteristic of pitch is that it carries melodic information. This study investigated whether 3-month-olds, 7-month-olds, and adults can detect a change in a melody composed of missing fundamental complexes. Participants heard a seven-note melody and learned to respond to a change that violated the melodic contour. To ensure that participants were responding on the basis of pitch, the notes in the melody had missing fundamentals and varied in spectral content on each presentation. In experiment I, all melodies had the same absolute pitch, while in experiment II, the melodies were randomly transposed into one of three different keys on each presentation. Almost all participants learned to ignore the spectral changes and respond to the changed note of the melody in both experiments, strengthening the argument that complex tones elicit a sense of musical pitch in infants. These results provide evidence that complex pitch perception is functional by 3 months of age.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

Lau

Lalonde

Oster

et al. 2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…P ACC and N ACC amplitudes and latencies showed high variability for the infants and toddlers (Figure 5) in the current study, which is not surprising -multiple studies have demonstrated that cortical developmental trajectories are not complete in infancy and the infant cortex matures at different rates in different areas and layers of the cortex 23,24 . Previous literature has shown that despite auditory cortex including thalamocortical connections being immature, infants as young as 3 months or 12 weeks are capable of perceiving pitch 27 . Three-month old infants have been reported to perceive pitch of even missing fundamentals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Maturation of the Acoustic Change Complex in Response to Iterated Ripple Noise in ‘Normal’-Hearing Infants, Toddlers, and Adults

et al. 2022

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Background: Infants and toddlers are still being evaluated for their hearing sensitivity but not their auditory processing skills. Iterated Rippled Noise (IRN) stimuli require the auditory system to utilize the temporal periodicity and auto-correlate the iterations to perceive pitch. Purpose: This study investigated the acoustic change complex (ACC) elicited by iterated ripple noise (IRN) in normal-hearing infants, toddlers, and adults to determine the maturation of cortical processing of IRN stimuli. Design: Cortical responses to filtered white noise (onset) concatenated with IRN stimuli [d=10 ms, gain=0.7 dB: 4-32 iterations] were recorded in quiet, alert participants. Study Sample: Participants included 25 infants (2.5-15 months), 27 toddlers (22-59 months), and 8 adults (19-25 years) with normal hearing sensitivity. Data collection and analysis: Cortical auditory evoked responses were recorded for each participant, including the onset response to the noise and an ACC to the transition from noise to IRN. Group differences were assessed using repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Results: Most infants had a replicable onset (P) response, while only about half had a measurable ACC (PACC) response to the high-saliency IRN condition. Most toddlers had onset responses and also showed a P-NACC response to the high-saliency IRN16 and IRN32 conditions. Most of the toddler group had responses present to the onset and showed a P-NACC response to all IRN conditions. Toddlers and adults showed similar P-NACC amplitudes however adults showed an increase in N1ACC amplitude with increase in IRN iterations (i.e., increased salience). Conclusions: While cortical responses to the percept of sound as determined by the onset response (P) to a stimulus is present in most infants, ACC responses to IRN stimuli are not mature in infancy. Most toddlers as young as 22 months, however, exhibited ACC responses to the IRN stimuli even when the pitch saliency was low (e.g., IRN4). The findings of the current study have implications for future research when investigating maturational effects on ACC and the optimal choice of stimuli.

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“…Adults often have difficulty distinguishing between pitch and the aspect of timbre known as brightness, describing increases in both as being "higher." In studies of discrimination, interference between the two dimensions is common (Allen & Oxenham, 2014;Borchert, Micheyl, & Oxenham, 2011;Lau & Werner, 2014), and in functional imaging studies, substantial overlap between representations of pitch and brightness has been reported (Allen, Burton, Mesik, Olman, & Oxenham, 2019). Musical training typically leads to be better pitch discrimination prior to explicit training (Madsen, Marschall, Dau, & Oxenham, 2019;Micheyl et al, 2006), but does not eliminate such interference (Allen & Oxenham, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants can outperform adults in pitch and timbre perception

Lau¹,

Oxenham²,

Werner³

2020

Preprint

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Adults perceive pitch with fine precision, an ability ascribed to cortical functions that are also important for speech and music perception. Infants display neural immaturity in the auditory cortex, suggesting that pitch discrimination may improve throughout infancy. In three experiments, we tested the limits of pitch and timbre perception in 66 infants and 44 adults. Contrary to expectations, we found that infants surpassed adults in detecting subtle changes in pitch in the presence of random variations in timbre, and vice versa. The results indicate high fidelity of pitch and timbre coding in infants, implying that fully mature cortical processing is not necessary for accurate discrimination of these features. The surprising superiority of infants over adults may reflect a developmental trajectory for learning natural statistical covariations between pitch and timbre that improves coding efficiency in adults, but results in degraded perceptual acuity when expectations for such covariations are violated.

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Perception of the pitch of unresolved harmonics by 3- and 7-month-old human infants

Cited by 12 publications

References 57 publications

Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

The Maturation of the Acoustic Change Complex in Response to Iterated Ripple Noise in ‘Normal’-Hearing Infants, Toddlers, and Adults

Infants can outperform adults in pitch and timbre perception

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