Abstract
In an influential study, Carlyon and Shackleton [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3541-3554 (1994)] measured listeners' performance (d′) in fundamental-frequency (F0) discrimination between harmonic complex tones (HCTs) presented simultaneously in different spectral regions and compared their performance with that found in a sequential-comparison task. In this Letter, it is suggested that Carlyon and Shackleton's analysis of the simultaneous- comparison data did not adequately reflect their assumption that listeners were effectively comparing F0's across regions. A reanalysis consistent with this assumption is described. The new results suggest that under the assumption that listeners were effectively comparing F0 across regions, their performance in this task was substantially higher than originally estimated by Carlyon and Shackleton, and in some conditions much higher than expected from the performances measured in a traditional F0-discrimination task with sequential HCTs. Possible explanations for this outcome, as well as alternative interpretations, are proposed.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 41-44 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of the Acoustical Society of America |
Volume | 118 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2005 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD Grant R01 DC 05216). The authors are grateful to Robert Carlyon, Laurent Demany, Joshua Bernstein, David Messing, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. 1