Investigating the pitch discrimination structure for low and high frequency notes in Persian-speaking children

Pitch discrimination is a manifestation of sound frequency perception and is defined as an auditory perception that can arrange sounds on a scale from low to high. Pitch discrimination aptitude is an acquired process and as with any other process can be affected by personal and environmental conditions. The pathway and index of these changes are the goals of the present study. In this study pitch discrimination of 75 children, including 37 girls and 38 boys at the age of 8-12 was evaluated by comparing the pitch ratios. The pitch threshold is the minimum distance in which a child can correctly distinguish two successive notes. These indexes were obtained for four notes of musical instruments and voices that are most frequent.  Average pitch discrimination for the four notes under study was estimated to be fewer than six semitones and slightly more than four semitones; however, for notes with lower fundamental frequencies, this threshold showed to have higher quantities. The structure of pitch discrimination for sounds with low fundamental frequency is distinct from the sounds with high fundamental frequencies, and unlike treble sounds, at least in childhood, pitch discrimination of bass continues to grow and develop.