van den Brink, G. (1975). The relation between binaural diplacusis for pure tones and for complex sounds under normal conditions and with induced monaural pitch shift. Acustica 32, 159-165

Binaural pitch matching experiments with pure tones and with complex sounds consisting of three successive harmonics of a common fundamental have been carried out.

There is remarkably good agreement between data calculated from experimental results with pure-tone matchings and those directly measured with complex sounds, despite the fact that a residue pitch was being perceived in the latter case. This fit is very satisfactory, as long as the rank numbers of the harmonics are not too high (up to S). For higher harmonics the agreement between residue-pitch and pure-tone pitch matchings is worse.

This suggests that the neural excitation pattern that is characteristic of the perception of a certain residue pitch is determined by the neural excitation patterns induced by the separate components of a complex sound which are already representative of their separate pure-tone pitches.

The deterioration of the fit for higher harmonics can be due to several causes, such as increasing overlap of excitation patterns, the existence of combination tones and spectral dominance.