Perception and neural coding of pitch through the lifespan: Peripheral and cortical considerations

Pitch is a primary perceptual attribute of our auditory world, playing a critical role in music, speech, and the organization of the auditory scene into perceptual objects. It has long been thought that stimulus timing information, conveyed by the auditory nerve, underlies and limits our exquisite sensitivity to differences in frequency, and our ability to detect very small fluctuations or modulations in frequency. This talk will describe our recent work, drawing from human behavioral, neuroimaging, and developmental studies, which suggest that the limitations may be more central in nature and may in part be shaped by our early exposure to sounds in our environment.