Abstract
The auditory system is adept at separating out concurrent sounds. One cue that it exploits is the difference in fundamental frequency (voice pitch) between voices; speech sounds and words are more easily identified when two voices have different fundamental frequencies than when the fundamental frequencies are the same. Many ingenious mechanisms have been proposed for this effect, but a harmonic cancellation mechanism appears to be most consistent with the evidence. I will review this evidence and describe recent data that begins to characterize the cancellation mechanism.
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