Beschreibung:
<jats:p>In 1955, Licklider visited The Netherlands and demonstrated by means of masking noise that the presence of the fundamental is not essential for hearing the low pitch of a complex tone. The “case of the missing fundamental” was a very hot issue in this country after Hoogland, in his 1953 doctoral dissertation, suggested that Schouten's opposite conclusion from experiments with signals without the fundamental, carried out in 1938–40, should be explained by nonlinear distortion in his equipment reintroducing the fundamental. Of course, Schouten did not accept this ill-based criticism. He considered his results as evidence that the low pitch is based on the periodicity of the combined harmonics not resolved by the ear, his famous “residue” theory. With Licklider's demonstration, the classical controversy, going back to Seebeck and Ohm, seemed to be solved definitely in favor of Seebeck. “Periodicity pitch” theory, as elaborated by Licklider in his “duplex” (1951) and “triplex” (1955) theories, seemed to have succeeded “place pitch” theory, promoted by famous scientists such as Helmholtz and von Békésy, but for how long? The paper will review the significance of Licklider's contribution in the light of subsequent experimental evidence showing that frequency resolution does play an essential role in pitch perception.</jats:p>