Relationships between vocal pitch perception and production: a developmental perspective

Abstract

the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between vocal pitch discrimination abilities and vocal responses to auditory pitch-shifts. Twenty children (6.6-11.7 years) and twenty adults (18-28 years) completed a listening task to determine auditory discrimination abilities to vocal fundamental frequency (f o ) as well as two vocalization tasks in which their perceived f o was modulated in real-time. These pitch-shifts were either unexpected, providing information on auditory feedback control, or sustained, providing information on sensorimotor adaptation. Children were subdivided into two groups based on their auditory pitch discrimination abilities; children within two standard deviations of the adult group were classified as having adult-like discrimination abilities (N = 11), whereas children outside of this range were classified as having less sensitive discrimination abilities than adults (n = 9). Children with less sensitive auditory pitch discrimination abilities had significantly larger vocal response magnitudes to unexpected pitch-shifts and significantly smaller vocal response magnitudes to sustained pitch-shifts. children with less sensitive auditory pitch discrimination abilities may rely more on auditory feedback and thus may be less adept at updating their stored motor programs.

Adaptation to pitch-altered feedback is independent of one’s own voice pitch sensitivity

“…Results confirmed that repetitive presentation of F0-shifted vocal stimuli in a constant and predictable manner led to sensorimotor adaptation in both experiments, regardless of the direction of the F0 shift, but overall it was very short-lived once the F0 alteration stopped (and in fact completely absent in the first experiment). These results are partly in line with previous reports 4,5,17,22 . However, we found no link between the magnitude of this adaptation phenomenon and the sensitivity to the error (F0 JND), despite our best effort to optimize the efficiency of the paradigm and inciting participants to believe that the error was self-generated (since it was, precisely, just-noticeable for everyone).…”

“…Inter-subject variability in vowel production led to a wide range of F0 JNDs. Following on previous findings 22,30,39 , we had hypothesized that the inter-speakers' variability in response to F0 perturbation would be due to the broad range of F0 JNDs across different speakers, but we failed to find direct evidence for this hypothesis. Similar investigations have been conducted to directly highlight the mechanistic link between the ability to detect F0 changes and compensate for them.…”

“…First, we hypothesized that a great deal of variability in the sensorimotor adaptation to a fixed 100-cent shift is due to the differential F0 sensitivity of different subjects, i.e., subjects not correcting to the same degree because they do not detect errors with the same accuracy, regardless of the direction of F0 manipulation. As a consequence, we expected to observe (1) a more homogeneous adaptation magnitude across subjects in response to the JND shift, and (2) a negative correlation between F0 JND and adaptation magnitude (similar to Murray and Stepp 22 ). Second, adjusting the size of the F0 alteration to the participant's JND should, in principle, optimize participants' belief that they hear their own voice and not an alien or externally-generated voice.…”

“…The expected behavior from the speaker is to detect the error and correct it 2 . Feedback manipulation could target different acoustical parameters including fundamental frequency of the voice (F0) 3 – 5 , 17 , 19 – 22 , formant frequencies of vowels 6 , 23 – 25 , and fricative consonants 26 . As an example, speakers whose voice is manipulated downwards in F0 will tend to shift their vocal range slightly upwards, as a way to compensate for the error perceived.…”

“…Their results confirmed previous findings implying that speakers with poor auditory acuity are less competent in detecting and correcting feedback errors. Recently, Murray and Stepp 22 examined the relationship between auditory discrimination and vowel production. They asked both adults and children to perform three tasks, including a two-alternative forced-choice pitch discrimination task, a compensation, and an adaptation paradigm.…”