PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Basilar Membrane, Musical Tone, Missing Fundamental

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Alan Morgan

Document Summary

Complication #1: most tones are not sine waves: when you hear a complex tones what you have is a fundamental : lowest frequency- 200hz the pitch you hear, the fundamental but then you hear harmonics: which are multiples of the fundamental- 400, 600, 800, 1000 more than one wave on the basilar membrane. Fundamental is farthest away from the stapes: complication #2: periodicity pitch/case of the missing fundamental: we can sometimes hear the fundamental even though it is not physically playing. Where they removed the fundamental and all the lower tones slowly one by one got rid of the frequencies in a complex tone but you still heard the fundamental so it could not create a wave on the basilar membrane. Take a person and in one ear you have a pure tone of 1000hz and in another you have a tone of 1100hz and each ear plays a different tone but you hear only.