One of the most remarkable properties of the auditory system is its ability to extract pitch from complex tones. When the complex tone consists of a number of harmonically related partials, the pitch corresponds to the "missing fundamentaJ." This pitch is often referred to as pitch of the missing fundamental, virtual pitch, or musical pitch.
When the partials are not exactly harmonics of a missing fundamental, we arrive at a "virtual pitch" by some strategy that may weigh several possibilities, and when the choice is difficult the pitch may be ambiguous.
Familiar examples of such virtual pitch are the bass notes we hear from loudspeakers of very small size that radiate negligible power at low frequencies, and the subjective strike note of carillon bells, tuned church bells and orchestral chimes.
You will hear a complex tone with ten harmonics, first complete and then with the lower harmonics sucessively removed. Does the pitch of the complex change?
A complex tone consisting of 10 harmonics of 200 Hz having equal amplitude if presented, first with all harmonics, then without the fundamental, then without the two lowest harmonics, etc. Low-frequency noise (300-Hz lowpass, -10 dB) is include( to mask a 200-Hz difference tone that might be generated due to distortion in playback equipment.