Re: human versus spectral resolution

[Craig Atencio <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is just for the first part of your email, on time-frequency resolution.

A useful reference would be the book Time-Frequency Analysis by Leon 
Cohen (1995; Prentice Hall PTR). The entirety of Chapter 3 focuses on 
the Uncertainty Principle. The book is concerned with most issues 
related to time-frequency distributions, though it does not include 
anything on wavelets.

-Craig


Michael Fulton wrote:

> Could anyone please direct me to any literature on what are the 
> comparative limits of :
>  
> 1) Time/frequency resolution for digital signal spectral analysis , as 
> (sort of) governed by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle with relation 
> to the duration, sampling rate, frequency content and bandwidth of the 
> sound.
>  
> and
>  
> 2) The limits of the ability of the human ear to distinquish between 
> frequency/pitch and the exact time location of sounds, more or less 
> the same task as above.
>  
> Essentially,can a human ear outperform digital ( or even theoretical 
> analysis ) of sounds.
>  
> Especially, in areas such as pitch discrimination and temporal 
> localisiation of events and not signal separation or some higher level 
> analysis of the sound.
>  
> Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>  
> Thanks in advance. 
>
> M Fulron
>
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--
---------------------
Craig Atencio
Department of Bioengineering UCSF/UCB
W.M. Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience UCSF
513 Parnassus Ave.
HSE 834, Box 0732
San Francisco, CA, 94143-0732, USA
www.keck.ucsf.edu/~craig
office: 415-476-1762 (UCSF)
fax: 415-476-1941
cell: 510-708-6346