Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , bugbear
wrote:
A sine wave is a sine wave is a sine wave.


It can be detected - or not.


it may be slightly more complicated than that. :-)

The problem is that the ear is, physiologically and physically, a
non-linear system. Thus we can't be sure that linear superposition applies
to all its properties.

In this context that may mean that some frequency components may become
more or less audible as a result of other components being present (or
absent). Hence the idea that it may be possible to hear the effect of some
components when combined with others, but not when they are in isolation.

So tests using sinewaves will tell us what sinewaves we can hear. But that
may not tell us what components we can hear in more complex sounds.

AFAIK (and I would welcome source data) while the percieved amplitude
of a component may be affected by other components,

http://www.users.cloud9.net/~cgseife/oddity.html

the ability to detect a frequency (at "adequate" loudness) is pretty
much boolean.

BugBear

In article , bugbear
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article ,
bugbear wrote:
[snip]

So tests using sinewaves will tell us what sinewaves we can hear. But
that may not tell us what components we can hear in more complex
sounds.

AFAIK (and I would welcome source data) while the percieved amplitude of
a component may be affected by other components,

http://www.users.cloud9.net/~cgseife/oddity.html

the ability to detect a frequency (at "adequate" loudness) is pretty
much boolean.

You would need to clarify your definitions of "adequate" and "boolean" in
this context before I could comment. However FWIW have a look at some of
the pages on 'hearing' on the 'Audio Misc' site, and perhaps look at some
of the results of Oohashi and others if you are interested in this topic.
It is not clear what their results may mean (if anything!), but they are
quite intriguing as they imply that 'ultrasonic' sic? components may have
an effect in some circumstances. However the snark may be a boojum...

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:42:49 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:


You would need to clarify your definitions of "adequate" and "boolean" in
this context before I could comment. However FWIW have a look at some of
the pages on 'hearing' on the 'Audio Misc' site, and perhaps look at some
of the results of Oohashi and others if you are interested in this topic.
It is not clear what their results may mean (if anything!), but they are
quite intriguing as they imply that 'ultrasonic' sic? components may
have
an effect in some circumstances. However the snark may be a boojum...


I thought that Oohashi's work had been pretty much discredited by now.
Certainly no-one seems to have been able to reproduce his results.

Cheers

James.

In article , James Perrett
wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:42:49 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:


You would need to clarify your definitions of "adequate" and "boolean"
in this context before I could comment. However FWIW have a look at
some of the pages on 'hearing' on the 'Audio Misc' site, and perhaps
look at some of the results of Oohashi and others if you are
interested in this topic. It is not clear what their results may mean
(if anything!), but they are quite intriguing as they imply that
'ultrasonic' sic? components may have an effect in some
circumstances. However the snark may be a boojum...


I thought that Oohashi's work had been pretty much discredited by now.
Certainly no-one seems to have been able to reproduce his results.

His results are certainly 'curious'. Do you know of any references to
reports of contrary work?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 09:50:54 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , James Perrett
wrote:

I thought that Oohashi's work had been pretty much discredited by now.
Certainly no-one seems to have been able to reproduce his results.

His results are certainly 'curious'. Do you know of any references to
reports of contrary work?


I don't know of any papers - I'm probably half remembering something
posted by Jim Johnson to the pro-audio mailing list.

Cheers

James.

In article , James Perrett
wrote:
On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 09:50:54 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , James Perrett
wrote:

I thought that Oohashi's work had been pretty much discredited by
now. Certainly no-one seems to have been able to reproduce his
results.

His results are certainly 'curious'. Do you know of any references to
reports of contrary work?


I don't know of any papers - I'm probably half remembering something
posted by Jim Johnson to the pro-audio mailing list.

FWIW It would not surprise me particularly if it turned out that Oohashi's
results were unreliable for some reason. However although I have doubts, as
yet I've not seen any more reliable work that shows he may have been wrong,
or why/how... So at present I would not personally regard his results as
'discredited' (except perhaps in the sense that some people have insisted
he must be wrong). I'd welcome some evidence on this, though.

However even if he is incorrect, the basic point I made a while does
remain. That the physiology of hearing is well-established to be nonlinear.
Thus measurements using single sinewave tones do not necessarily tell us
what components do (or do not) make an audible different to more complex
sounds. (Indeed, the exploitation of 'masking' in psycho-acoustic data
reduction relies on one aspect of this.)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html