Electrophysiological and Psychophysical Measures of Temporal Pitch Sensitivity in Normal-hearing Listeners

To obtain combined behavioural and electrophysiological measures of pitch perception, we presented harmonic complexes, bandpass filtered to contain only high-numbered harmonics, to normal-hearing listeners. These stimuli resemble bandlimited pulse trains and convey pitch using a purely temporal code...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology 2023-02, Vol.24 (1), p.47-65
Main Authors: Guérit, François, Harland, Andrew J., Richardson, Matthew L., Gransier, Robin, Middlebrooks, John C., Wouters, Jan, Carlyon, Robert P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Auditory discrimination
Brain Stem
Cochlea
Cochlear Implantation - methods
Cochlear Implants
Frequency
Frequency dependence
Hearing
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Neurobiology
Neurosciences
Otorhinolaryngology
Pitch Discrimination - physiology
Pitch Perception - physiology
Psychophysics
Research Article
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Summary:To obtain combined behavioural and electrophysiological measures of pitch perception, we presented harmonic complexes, bandpass filtered to contain only high-numbered harmonics, to normal-hearing listeners. These stimuli resemble bandlimited pulse trains and convey pitch using a purely temporal code. A core set of conditions consisted of six stimuli with baseline pulse rates of 94, 188 and 280 pps, filtered into a HIGH (3365–4755 Hz) or VHIGH (7800–10,800 Hz) region, alternating with a 36% higher pulse rate. Brainstem and cortical processing were measured using the frequency following response (FFR) and auditory change complex (ACC), respectively. Behavioural rate change difference limens (DLs) were measured by requiring participants to discriminate between a stimulus that changed rate twice (up-down or down-up) during its 750-ms presentation from a constant-rate pulse train. FFRs revealed robust brainstem phase locking whose amplitude decreased with increasing rate. Moderate-sized but reliable ACCs were obtained in response to changes in purely temporal pitch and, like the psychophysical DLs, did not depend consistently on the direction of rate change or on the pulse rate for baseline rates between 94 and 280 pps. ACCs were larger and DLs lower for stimuli in the HIGH than in the VHGH region. We argue that the ACC may be a useful surrogate for behavioural measures of rate discrimination, both for normal-hearing listeners and for cochlear-implant users. We also showed that rate DLs increased markedly when the baseline rate was reduced to 48 pps, and compared the behavioural and electrophysiological findings to recent cat data obtained with similar stimuli and methods.
ISSN:1438-7573
1525-3961
1438-7573
DOI:10.1007/s10162-022-00879-7