Pitch is an essential sensory quality derived from auditory signals. For harmonically structured, i.e., periodic sounds, pitch is usually perceived at the fundamental frequency regardless of its actual physical presence, a phenomenon also referred to as virtual pitch. The present behavioral experiments in bats show for the first time that mammals can perceive virtual pitch even at ultrasonic frequencies. This result sheds new light on the controversy of how pitch is extracted from complex tones.
展开▼
