SoundSketcher experiment showcase

Indefinite-Pitch Sounds

A listening task for sounds that do not offer a stable fundamental frequency: noise bands, clusters, environmental textures, and other sounds whose pitch height is perceptually real but acoustically ambiguous.

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Study set 0 of 0

Sinusoidal match

40 Hz 6000 Hz

440 Hz

Sine volume 80%

Hold the slider to hear the sine tone, then release to stop it.

Stimuli

Publication Context

Beyond fundamental frequency: Pitch height judgments in Indefinite-Pitch sounds

Konstantinos Velenis, Asteris Zacharakis, and Emilios Cambouropoulos

JASA Express Letters, 2026. DOI: 10.1121/10.0043569

Study Snapshot

48 listeners

19 non-harmonic sounds

1 sinusoidal adjustment task

Methodology

Participants first used three training examples to learn the interface and set a comfortable listening level.
For each study sound, they adjusted a sine tone until it matched the perceived pitch height of the sound.
When no convincing pitch match was available, they could mark the trial as no match.

Core Findings

Listeners can make reliable pitch-height distinctions even when periodic cues are weak or absent.
A loudness-weighted spectral centroid is a useful predictor of perceived pitch height in these sounds.
Sounds with greater spectrotemporal variability tend to produce less accurate or more dispersed matches.

Result Figures

Distribution of listener pitch matches per stimulus, highlighting agreement and dispersion across sounds.

Stimulus-level pitch judgments against spectral centroid, with compact stimulus labels.

Median perceived pitch height plotted against loudness-weighted spectral centroid, showing the main acoustic-perceptual relationship.

Mixed-effects model view of the contribution of loudness-weighted spectral information to pitch-height judgments.

Why It Matters Here

SoundSketcher needs a vertical pitch-like mapping for electroacoustic and environmental sounds, not only for harmonic tones. This experiment supports a practical idea: when fundamental frequency is unreliable, perceptually weighted spectral information can still guide graphical placement.

Links

Original participant information PDF
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