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Chambers, Mattingley, and Moss (2004) present a review of research and theory concerning the octave illusion, a phenomenon that was originally reported by Deutsch (1974). The authors argue against the two-channel model proposed by Deutsch (1975a) to explain the illusory percept that was most commonly obtained and propose, instead, that the illusion results from binaural fusion and diplacusis. This article replies to the arguments raised by Chambers et al. (2004) and argues that the octave illusion and the two-channel model proposed to explain it are in accordance with growing evidence for what-where dissociations in the auditory system and for illusory conjunctions in hearing.

Recognition of the pitch of a tone is disrupted by the interpolation of other tones during the retention interval. The disruptive effect of an interpolated tone varies systematically as a function of its pitch relationship to the tone to be remembered, and is maximal at a 2/3-tone separation. When such a tone is interpolated, the interpolation in addition of a further tone that is 2/3 tone removed from this disruptive tone (and 4/3 tone removed from the tone to be remembered) causes recognition of the first tone substantially to return. When recognition performance is plotted as a function of the pitch relationship between these two interpolated tones, the results accord well with a model assuming mutual inhibitory interactions between pitch memory elements.

The recall of hierarchically organized tonal sequences was investigated in two experiments. An adaptation of the technique of melodic dictation was employed, in which musically trained listeners notated each sequence after it was presented. Strong effects of sequence structure were obtained. Sequences whose tonal structure could be parsimoniously encoded in hierarchical fashion were recalled with a high level of accuracy. Sequences that could not be parsimoniously encoded produced substantially more errors in recall. Temporal segmentation was found to have a substantial effect on performance, which reflected grouping by temporal proximity regardless of tonal structure. The results provide evidence for the hypothesis that we encode tonal materials by inferring sequence structures and alphabets at different hierarchical levels, together with their rules of combination.

It has been argued that there is a limit to the rate at which we can switch attention between ears in monitoring auditory information. Listeners identified melodic configurations formed by rapid sequences of tones. When these sequences were presented binaurally, excellent performance was obtained. Yet when the component tones of the melody were distributed between the ears, performance was largely nullified when a drone (i.e., a lower constantfrequency tone) was presented to the ear opposite that receiving the melody component. This improvement in performance cannot be attributed to processing the harmonic relationships between melody and drone, since when, instead, the drone was presented to the same ear as the melody component, performance was at chance. Onset-offset asynchronies between the drone and melody components resulted in performance levels between those where the drone and melody components were synchronous and those where the melody switched between ears without an accompanying drone. It is argued that difficulties in binaural integration are due not to processing limitations, but to a mechanism that is invoked under certain conditions to prevent confusion in monitoring individual sound sources.

Subjects made delayed pitch comparisons between tones that were each preceded by tones of lower pitch. The pitches of these preceding tones were so chosen that in some conditions the melodic intervals formed by the standard (S) and comparison (C) combinations were identical, and in others they differed. A strong effect of melodic relational context was demonstrated. When the S and C combinations formed identical melodic intervals, there was an increased tendency for the S and C tones to be judged as identical. And when the S and C combinations formed different melodic intervals, there was an increased tendency for the S and C tones to be judged as different. These effects occurred both when the S and C tones were identical in pitch and also when these differed, and they occurred despite instructions to attend only to the S and C tones.

Subjects were presented with two parallel pulse trains through earphones, one to each ear. The pulse trains were isochronous, and the durations of the intervals associated with the right and left trains were systematically varied, so as to give rise to both simple rhythms and polyrhythms. The subjects were required to tap with the right hand in synchrony with the train delivered to the right ear, and to tap with the left hand in synchrony with the train delivered to the left ear. Accuracy of performance in polyrhythm contexts was substantially lower than in simple rhythm contexts, and decreased with an increase in the complexity of the associated polyrhythm. It was concluded that the performer develops a representation of the pattern as an integrated whole, and that performance accuracy is inversely related to pattern complexity.

Subjects compared the pitches of two tones which were separated by a retention interval during which six extra tones were interpolated. The effects were studied of varying the sizes of the melodic intervals formed by the successive tones of the interpolated sequence. It was found that error rates were lower when the interpolated sequences were composed of smaller melodic intervals; and it was argued that such sequences formed a more effective framework of pitch relationships to which the test tones could be anchored.

An experiment is described which demonstrates that certain highly specific disruptive effects in immediate memory for tonal pitch generalize across octaves. Pitch recognition was required after a retention interval during which six other tones were played. The effects of including in the interpolated sequence tones which were removed by exactly an octave from those which had already been demonstrated to produce disruption were investigated. Generalization of these interference effects was found to result both from tones which were displaced an octave higher and (to a lesser extent) from tones which were displaced an octave lower. It is concluded that the memory store that retains information concerning the pitch of ifidividual tones is bidimensional in nature, both “tone height” and “tone chroma” being represented.

An issue of considerable interest to perceptual and cognitive psychology concerns the internal representation of information in the form of hierarchies. Strong evidence has accumulated for the encoding of visual scenes as hierarchies of subscenes (Bower & Glass, 1976; Hanson & Riseman, 1978; Navon, 1977; Palmer, 1977; Winston, 1973). Sophisticated hierarchical models of the representation of sentence structure have been advanced (Chomsky, 1963; Miller & Chomsky, 1963; Yngve, 1960). The hierarchical structure of tonal music has been the subject of considerable analysis (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1977; Meyer, 1956, 1973; Narmour, 1977; Salzer, 1962; Schenker, 1956, 1973). It has been shown that, when presented with hierarchically organized serial patterns, subjects' encodings of these patterns reflect pattern structure (Bjork, 1968; Kotovsky & Simon, 1973; Restle, 1970; Restle & Brown, 1970; Simon & Kotovsky, 1963; Simon & Sumner, 1968; Vitz & Todd, 1967, 1969). In considering how hierarchically structured information is internally represented, models utilizing hierarchies of operators have proved particularly useful (Greeno & Simon, 1974; Restle, 1970). Recently, I, together with the mathematician John Feroe, have proposed a model for the internal representation of pitch sequences in tonal music that utilizes this approach (Deutsch & Feroe, 1981). This model, which is also briefly described in Deutsch (1980), has recently been seriously misdescribed by Jones (1981). The major purpose of the present note is to dispel any misconceptions about the model that may have arisen as a result of this erroneous description. 1 In the model of Deutsch and Feroe (1981), pitch sequences are assumed to be represented as hierarchical networks. At each level of the hierarchy, elements are organized as structural units in accordance with laws of figural goodness such as proximity and good continuation. Elements at each hierarchical level are elaborated by further elements so as to form structural units at the next-lower level, until the lowest level is attained. At each level of the hierarchy, there exists a set of

An experiment was performed to investigate whether or not we are able to use octave generalization in recognizing tunes. The firat half of the tune “Yankee Doodle” wu chosen as the test sequence. This was universally recognized when played in any one of three octaves. However, when the sequence was played in identical fashion. except that each note was chosen randomly from one of the same three octaves, the percentage correct recognition was not significantly different from that obtained when the sequence was played as a series of clicks with the pitch information omitted but the rhythmic information retained. It is concluded that tune recognition takes place along a channel which is independent from that which gives rise to octave generalization. The relevance of this finding to the theory of music recognition proposed by Deutsch (1969) is discussed.

COMPUTER-GENERATED tonal sequences have several advantages for investigations of immediate memory: the stimulus parameters are simple and can be exactly controlled, and the items cannot be readily rehearsed. Previous studies of memory for pitch have investigated the effect on the differential threshold of blank intervals between the standard and comparison tones1–3 and of one interpolated tone4,5.