Audibility of High Harmonics in a Periodic Pulse. II. Time Effect

Abstract

In a previous paper the audibility has been reported of high harmonics which had been eliminated from the spectrum of a periodic pulse. The present paper gives evidence that this phenomenon can be ascribed to an analysis of the time pattern of the stimulus. This time analysis is thought to occur after a frequency analysis with limited resolving power, such as is carried out at the basilar membrane. Evidence for this idea is provided by a scanning experiment. The response to a periodic pulse is scanned with a periodic sine‐wave train as a probe. The data show a distinct time effect. A simple model of the peripheral auditory system (a bank of bandpass filters followed by time selective energy detectors) is shown to describe the data qualitatively. A quantative description requires additional specifications of the filter and detector characteristics. This allows an estimation of the frequency resolving power of the peripheral auditory system. For the quality factor Q, we thus estimated a value greater than 7.