Pitch memory for short tones

Ten listeners judged a 300-msec tone as higher or lower in pitch than another 300-msec tone that occurred 8 sec earlier. The intervening time either was unfilled or contained a 400-msec interpolated tone. This interpolated tone occurred either just after the first tone or just before the final one, and was of a frequency either inside or outside the critical band of the target frequency. Performance for the silent-interval condition was about as good as has been reported for pitch discrimination with no delay when the target was 250 Hz but was slightly poorer for the target at 1,550 Hz. Presence of the interpolated tone decreased the slope of the psychometric unction and produced constant error for nine Ss. These effects were more pronounced when the interpolated tone occurred 50 msec after the target than when it preceded the comparison tone by 50 msec. Both brevity of the target tone and occurrence soon thereafter of an interpolated tone are required to produce constant errors of pitch memory.