Hi,

Andrew,
the website you reference to does not mention whether the measurements of
pitch discrimination were carried out with simultaneous sounding sine waves
or with consecutive ones.

Furthermore the test are about "the population as a whole".
I doubt that the average population is interested in the small details, we
are discussing here: What I would like to know is therefore, what the
results are for musical professionals, and especially for those who are
used and capable to tune instruments.


As soon as one tests  by comparing *consecutive sine waves* to each other
 memory must play a role, and I agree that in consecutive notes, the range
must be rather imprecise. One should also record whether the tested people
have a pitch memory ("perfect pitch") and to what degree.


With *simultaneous sounding sine waves*, however, I'd expect a way narrower
band of pitch discrimination (much less than 1 Hz) and especially in
partial-rich sounds with virtually no or very small deviation of the
partials from the small whole integers.
The difference of 1 Hz between two waves of 501 Hz and 500 Hz results in
 3.5 Cent. I'd tend to think, that that difference is clearly audible in
simultaneous sound. - No?


Kind regards
Ibo


*
A difference of 1 Hz between two waves of 441 Hz and 440 Hz is 1.2 Cent


* * * * * *

*Ibo Ortgies Language & Research Services <http://www.iboortgies.com/>*

 = = = = =


2016-02-08 3:03 GMT+01:00 Andrew Bernard <[log in to unmask]>:


> ... The psychoacoustic experiments that have accumulated over the last 100
> years tend to indicate that the population as a whole can discriminate
> signals separated by about 1-3Hz from about 100Hz to 500-1000Hz. From 500Hz
> to 2000-4000Hz Weber’s Law takes over, which means that the Just Noticeable
> Difference (and) becomes larger as the frequency increases (and the Weber
> fraction is roughly constant), so by the time you are at 4K you can really
> only discriminate about 10-12Hz, if you are good (as we are on this list
> :-))
>
> ...

>
> For those who are interested, here is a chart of what is the called the
> difference limen for frequency, which is what we are talking about, based
> on experimental data.
>
>
> http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/biology/hearing/content-section-11.2
>
>
> Note that intensity affects these results.
>

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