Matching formant frequencies of complex sounds on different fundamentals

In order to explore the ability of listeners to match formant frequencies in periodic sounds that differ in their fundamental frequency (F0), listeners adjusted the frequency of one formant of periodically excited one- or two-formant sounds to match the timbre of a similar target sound that could have either the same or a different F0. Variability of matching (s.d. of matches within each listener) was low when matching sounds were on the same F0. Variability increased when matching sounds had different F0s. However, this increase was larger for sounds with resolved harmonics than for those with unresolved harmonics. This difference may reflect the perceptual cost of estimating the spectral envelope (and formant frequency) from the excitation pattern. [Work supported by EPSRC Grant No. GR/L03422.]