Fig. 6.

Harmonic advantage for discriminating tones in noise (Experiment 4). a Schematic of the trial structure for Experiment 4. During each trial, participants heard two noise bursts, each of which contained a complex tone (both tones were either harmonic or inharmonic), and were asked to decide whether the second tone was higher or lower than the first tone. b Results from Experiment 4. Error bars denote standard error of the mean. For conditions where we were unable to measure thresholds from all participants, the number of participants with measurable thresholds is indicated next to the data point. When unmeasurable, participants’ thresholds were conservatively recorded as 4 semitones (25.99%) for analysis. Exact threshold values are provided for thresholds under 10%. Asterisks denote statistical significance of a two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test between Harmonic and Inharmonic conditions: ***=p<0.001, **=p<0.01, *=p<0.05. c Discrimination thresholds from Experiment 4 adjusted based on the detection thresholds measured in Experiment 1. The x-axis plots SNR relative to the detection threshold for the three different types of tone