Audibility of harmonics in periodic "white noise"

The finding that spectrally suppressed high harmonics (n>16) in a periodic pulse are perceptible has been related [H. Duifhuis, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 48, 888–893 (1970); 49, 1155–1163 (1971)] to the ear's limited resolving power in peripheral frequency analysis. The limited frequency resolution provides the possibility for an analysis in time. In order to verify the proposed explanation, we examined the audibility of harmonics in periodic white noise," which had the same amplitude spectrum as a periodic pulse, but a very different time structure. The audibility of low harmonics was similar in periodic pulse and noise, but for high harmonics significant differences were observed, as expected. Not expected, however, was the finding of relatively low thresholds of individual high harmonics, which seems to suggest that in the given listening condition (stimulus preceded by a conditioning tone in which the harmonic under consideration is suppressed), almost any harmonic is perceptible.