Correct tonotopic representation is necessary for complex pitch perception
Correct tonotopic representation is necessary for complex pitch perception
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.0306958101
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发表时间：
2004-02-03
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Penagos, H
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Oxenham, AJ;Bernstein, JGW;Penagos, H
从复杂的谐波声音中提取音高的能力，如人类语音，动物发声和乐器，是听觉的基本属性。一些音高理论依赖于内耳（耳蜗）中的频率-位置映射或音调映射，但目前大多数模型仅基于听觉神经中尖峰的相对定时。到目前为止，已经证明很难区分这两种可能的表示，主要是因为时间和位置信息通常在耳蜗中是协变的。在这项研究中，“换位刺激”被用来分离时间和地点信息。通过将低频正弦波的时间信息呈现给耳蜗中调谐到高频的位置，我们发现人类受试者对单音的音高感知较差。更重要的是，没有一个受试者能够从呈现给耳蜗高频区域的多个低频谐波中提取基频。实验结果表明，声调表征对复杂音高感知具有重要作用，并为寻找音高的神经基础提供了新的工具。
The ability to extract a pitch from complex harmonic sounds, such as human speech, animal vocalizations, and musical instruments, is a fundamental attribute of hearing. Some theories of pitch rely on the frequency-to-place mapping, or tonotopy, in the inner ear (cochlea), but most current models are based solely on the relative timing of spikes in the auditory nerve. So far, it has proved to be difficult to distinguish between these two possible representations, primarily because temporal and place information usually covary in the cochlea. In this study, "transposed stimuli" were used to dissociate temporal from place information. By presenting the temporal information of low-frequency sinusoids to locations in the cochlea tuned to high frequencies, we found that human subjects displayed poor pitch perception for single tones. More importantly, none of the subjects was able to extract the fundamental frequency from multiple low-frequency harmonics presented to high-frequency regions of the cochlea. The experiments demonstrate that tonotopic representation is crucial to complex pitch perception and provide a new tool in the search for the neural basis of pitch.