Introduction to psycho-acoustics: Some basic auditory attributes
Terminology — objective vs. subjective terms
A caveat about the word ‘pitch’
Thresholds and the auditory area — an audiogram (not the clinical type)
Thresholds and coding of loudness
Pitch perception for complex periodic signals
Hypothesis 1
The pitch of complexes with a missing fundamental
Masking spectral and virtual (the pitch we extract from complexes with a missing fundamental)
What happens to a train of pulses (a complex periodic waveform with a rich harmonic spectrum) when it is analysed by the cochlea?
A similar outcome for a more ‘ecologically valid’ sound, a vowel.
Timbre
A special (but very significant) case: Timbre for steady-state complex periodic signals
A change in spectral envelope
How are changes in spectral envelope (and hence timbre) likely to be coded in the auditory nerve?
Temporal aspects of sounds are very important for timbre distinctions in general ...
Full demonstration of the effects of tone envelope on timbre
This is where the lecture finished, but there are a few further slides (and an audio demonstration) you should have no trouble with. (Well, maybe the audio demonstration is tough to follow, but it’s interesting to listen to.)
Psychoacoustic reflections of auditory frequency selectivity
A masked audiogram For a fixed narrow-band masker, determine the change in threshold for sinusoidal probes at a wide variety of frequencies.
Psychophysical tuning curves Determine the minimum level of a narrow-band masker at a wide variety of frequencies that will just mask a fixed sinusoidal probe.
Other auditory abilities also reflect frequency selectivity
Really, the End!
Email: stuart@phon.ucl.ac.uk
Home Page: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/stuart/home.htm
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