Re: Granular synthesis and auditory segmentation

[Didier A Depireux <didier@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Richard J. Fabbri wrote:

> We can let Nature teach us a new path ... or, we can persist and
> continue applying a transform simply because a mathematical theory
> of such transforms makes analysis "simple" ... simple but, offers no
> truth (in fact) to the basic sense of hearing.

        So if I take a 1000 Hz pure sinusoid, and I half-wave rectify it,
it doesn't make a difference? You might want to try it yourself first.
        The pattern of activity on the basilar membrane will be quite
different, depending on whether you present a pure sinusoid or its
half-wave rectified version. It's simply because the frequency content of
the stimulus is different. The inner ear does do a sort of Fourier analysis
on the whole waveform.
        The half-wave rectification occurs _after_ the frequency
decomposition performed on the basilar membrane, i.e. after you have
decomposed the signal into frequency channels.

                                                        Didier

--
Didier A Depireux                              didier@isr.umd.edu
Neural Systems Lab                 http://www.isr.umd.edu/~didier
Institute for Systems Research          Phone: 301-405-6557 (off)
University of Maryland                                -6596 (lab)
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