An Auditory Neural Correlate Suggests a Mechanism Underlying Holistic Pitch Perception

Current theories of auditory pitch perception propose that cochlear place (spectral) and activity timing pattern (temporal) information are somehow combined within the brain to produce holistic pitch percepts, yet the neural mechanisms for integrating these two kinds of information remain obscure. To examine this process in more detail, stimuli made up of three pure tones whose components are individually resolved by the peripheral auditory system, but that nonetheless elicit a holistic, “missing fundamental” pitch percept, were played to human listeners. A technique was used to separate neural timing activity related to individual components of the tone complexes from timing activity related to an emergent feature of the complex (the envelope), and the region of the tonotopic map where information could originate from was simultaneously restricted by masking noise. Pitch percepts were mirrored to a very high degree by a simple combination of component-related and envelope-related neural responses with similar timing that originate within higher-frequency regions of the tonotopic map where stimulus components interact. These results suggest a coding scheme for holistic pitches whereby limited regions of the tonotopic map (spectral places) carrying envelope- and component-related activity with similar timing patterns selectively provide a key source of neural pitch information. A similar mechanism of integration between local and emergent object properties may contribute to holistic percepts in a variety of sensory systems.