Does static ear canal pressure influence pure-tone pitch perception?

Rowan, Daniel, Kapadia, Sarosh and Lutman, Mark (2004) Does static ear canal pressure influence pure-tone pitch perception? Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 124 (3), 286-289. (doi:10.1080/00016480310000511).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Objective - That static ear canal air pressure (ECP) influences the frequency of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) suggests that it may influence intracochlear, in addition to middle ear, processes. A previous study suggested that ECP influences pure tone pitch perception at 1,000 Hz, which was interpreted as indicating an effect on the cochlear place-frequency map. The present study extended investigations of this effect to 500 and 4,000 Hz. Material and Methods - Nine normal-hearing listeners performed interaural pitch matching with monaural ECPs of 0 and -300 daPa.
Results - Some indications of a small downward pitch shift (mean 0.2%) at 500 Hz were observed, which were marginally statistically significant at the 5% level. No pitch shifts were observed at 4,000 Hz.
Conclusions - ECP does not influence pitch to the extent suggested previously or by SOAE frequency shifts. No evidence was found to support the notion that ECP influences the place-frequency map.

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