Pitch-range perception: the dynamic interaction between voice quality and fundamental frequency

Effective pitch-range normalization is important to uncover intended linguistic pitch targets in continuous speech. Our previous study demonstrated that voice quality plays a role in pitch-range perception: "tense voice", implemented as stimuli with spectral balance tilted towards higher frequency, was perceived as higher in pitch. This psychoacoustic effect is consistent with the co-variation between pitch and tense voice in production. However, a spectral balance tilted towards higher frequency is also one of the properties of creaky voice, which is often associated with low pitch in production. Therefore, this raises the possibility that manipulating the f0 range of the stimuli or changing the sex of the speaker of the stimuli can reverse the direction of the shift. This current study replicates the previous experiment with the same forced choice pitch classification experiment with four spectral conditions, but uses a female voice to create the stimuli. In addition, two f0 ranges are used in the current experiments, which resemble the lower range and the higher range of a female voice. Overall, the results show that spectral balance interacts with f0 range: the presence of voice quality cues affect the perception of pitch range; but, the spectrum with greater energy in the high-frequency range can be interpreted as either creaky or tense depending on the f0 range. This current study enriches our understanding of the interaction between voice quality and pitch.