Finding the Pitch of the Missing Fundamental in Infants

He, Chao; Trainor, Laurel J.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0157-09.2009

Cited by 59 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…That both 3-and 7-month-olds can discriminate the pitch of harmonic complexes could indicate little cortical involvement in complex pitch perception given the differences in cortical organization across this age range. Interestingly, He et al (2007) observed a cortical response to spectral pitch changes in 2-, 3-, and 4-month-olds, but a cortical response to missing fundamental pitch changes only in 4-month-olds (He and Trainor, 2009). While the lack of a cortical response in 3-month-olds' is inconsistent with their behavioral demonstration of missing fundamental pitch discrimination, He and Trainor's (2009) result is certainly consistent with a re-organization of pitch processing in early infancy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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

Lau

Werner

2014

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Three-month-olds discriminate resolved harmonic complexes on the basis of missing fundamental (MF) pitch. In view of reported difficulty in discriminating unresolved complexes at 7 months and striking changes in the organization of the auditory system during early infancy, infants' ability to discriminate unresolved complexes is of some interest. This study investigated the ability of 3-month-olds, 7-month-olds, and adults to discriminate the pitch of unresolved harmonic complexes using an observer-based method. Stimuli were MF complexes bandpass filtered with a À12 dB/octave slope, combined in random phase, presented at 70 dB sound pressure level (SPL) for 650 ms with a 50 ms rise/fall with a pink noise at 65 dB SPL. The conditions were (1) "LOW" unresolved harmonics (2500-4500 Hz) based on MFs of 160 and 200 Hz and (2) "HIGH" unresolved harmonics (4000-6000 Hz) based on MFs of 190 and 200 Hz. To demonstrate MF discrimination, participants had to ignore spectral changes in complexes with the same fundamental and respond only when the fundamental changed. Nearly all infants tested categorized complexes by MF pitch suggesting discrimination of pitch extracted from unresolved harmonics by 3 months. Adults also categorized the complexes by MF pitch, although musically trained adults were more successful than musically untrained adults.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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

Lau

Werner

2014

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…The MMN response appears comparatively robust in early development, already being present in newborn infants, although with a different morphology than the adult response (Alho et al 1990). In contrast to adults who show a negative MMN response to occasional changes in a sound stream, young infants show a frontally positive slow wave response that tends to be left lateralized (Friederici et al 2002;Friedrich et al 2004;He et al 2007He et al , 2009aHe and Trainor 2009;Leppanen et al 2004;Morr et al 2002;Novitski et al 2007;Ruusuvirta et al 2004;Trainor et al 2003;Trainor et al 2001;Winkler et al 2003). The mature fast negative mismatch response emerges at different ages for changes in different sound features (Trainor 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Auditory ERPs change dramatically during infancy and early childhood (e.g., Ceponiene et al 2002;Choudhury and Benasich (2011);Fujioka et al 2006;He et al 2007He et al , 2009aHe and Trainor 2009;Ponton et al 2000;Trainor et al 2003;Trainor et al 2001), although fully mature evoked responses to a single tone are not achieved until the late teenage years (Ponton et al 2000;Shahin et al 2004). Unlike in adults and older children, infant ERPs evoked by tones are dominated by frontally positive slow waves, and obligatory components of the adult tone-evoked ERP are so small in infants that they are difficult to measure (Trainor and He 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical Plasticity in 4-Month-Old Infants: Specific Effects of Experience with Musical Timbres

2011

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Animal models suggest that the brain is particularly neuroplastic early in development, but previous studies have not systematically controlled the auditory environment in human infants and observed the effects on auditory cortical representations. We exposed 4-month-old infants to melodies in either guitar or marimba timbre (infants were randomly assigned to exposure group) for a total of ~160 min over the course of a week, after which we measured electroencephalogram (EEG) responses to guitar and marimba tones at pitches not previously heard during the exposure phase. A frontally negative response with a topography consistent with generation in auditory areas, peaking around 450 ms, was significantly larger for guitar than marimba tones in the guitar-exposed group but significantly larger for marimba than guitar tones in the marimba-exposed group. This indicates that experience with tones in a particular timbre affects representations for that timbre, and that this effect generalizes to tones not previously experienced during exposure. Furthermore, mismatch responses to occasional small 3% changes in pitch were larger for tones in guitar than marimba timbre only for infants exposed to guitar tones. Together these results indicate that a relatively small amount of passive exposure to a particular timbre in infancy enhances representations of that timbre and leads to more precise pitch processing for that timbre.

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“…The present demonstration of processing the cues for concurrent sound segregation at birth creates an interesting dissociation with concurrent sound integration, which had previously been shown to emerge only between 3 and 4 months of age [44]. It may appear contradictory that the infant should be able to detect an inharmonic partial earlier than being able to integrate harmonic frequency components into a single pitch percept.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Newborn Infants Detect Cues of Concurrent Sound Segregation

et al. 2015

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Separating concurrent sounds is fundamental for a veridical perception of one's auditory surroundings. Sound components that are harmonically related and start at the same time are usually grouped into a common perceptual object, whereas components that are not in harmonic relation or have different onset times are more likely to be perceived in terms of separate objects. Here we tested whether neonates are able to pick up the cues supporting this sound organization principle. We presented newborn infants with a series of complex tones with their harmonics in tune (creating the percept of a unitary sound object) and with manipulated variants, which gave the impression of two concurrently active sound sources. The manipulated variant had either one mistuned partial (single-cue condition) or the onset of this mistuned partial was also delayed (double-cue condition). Tuned and manipulated sounds were presented in random order with equal probabilities. Recording the neonates' electroencephalographic responses allowed us to evaluate their processing of the sounds. Results show that, in both conditions, mistuned sounds elicited a negative displacement of the event-related potential (ERP) relative to tuned sounds from 360 to 400 ms after sound onset. The mistuning-related ERP component resembles the object-related negativity (ORN) component in adults, which is associated with concurrent sound segregation. Delayed onset additionally led to a negative displacement from 160 to 200 ms, which was probably more related to the physical parameters of the sounds than to their perceptual segregation. The elicitation of an ORN-like response in newborn infants suggests that neonates possess the basic capabilities of segregating concurrent sounds by detecting inharmonic relations between the co-occurring sounds.

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Finding the Pitch of the Missing Fundamental in Infants

Cited by 59 publications

References 36 publications

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

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

Cortical Plasticity in 4-Month-Old Infants: Specific Effects of Experience with Musical Timbres

Newborn Infants Detect Cues of Concurrent Sound Segregation

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