Frequency discrimination of complex periodic tones

Abstract

When the components of a two-tone periodic complex differ slightly in amplitude and frequency, the pitch is shifted toward the more intense tone. This well-known phenomenon has been explained by differences in the instantaneous frequency functions of the complex tones. In this experiment, three listeners were asked to discriminate between complementary pairs of two-component complex tones. The results indicate that discriminability may depend upon differences in the envelope-weighted instantaneous frequency functions of the two-tone complexes.