Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaften, Univ. of Konstanz, Postfach 5560 (double dagger)D186>, D-78 464 Konstanz, Germany
Theories about the mechanisms of human's pitch perception either are based on the temporal firing rate of the haircells in the basilar membrane or on the place of these cells in the membrane in a sort of spectral representation. The insensitivity to the phase of individual components of a complex signal and the ability to perceive pitch for binaural presented harmonics has given experimental evidence for place-based pitch perception models. This paper explains theses findings with an alternative temporal rate model. The proposed explanation is based on a model of the inner ear that computes the energy of an acoustic signal in the time domain, leading to a temporal energy distribution of the signal. This temporal energy distribution is converted by a simple decision logic to a pitch value. The model will be theoretically discussed, reanalyses of reported experimental findings are presented, new experimental evidence for the proposed model will be given, and a computer program to determine the pitch of a speech signal based on the model's principles will be evaluated.