Re: Rationale for Critical Bands

["Brian C. J. Moore" <bcjm@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All

At 15:00 15/06/2010, Wiebe Horst wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am getting more and more confused by this discussion.
> It would help if every contributor started by giving his/her
> definition of Critical Band.
> I am used to using Scharf's (1970) definition:
> "The critical band is a band of that width at which subjective
> responses  change rather abruptly."

The problem with this definition is that there are few if any 
auditory responses which "change rather abruptly" at a certain 
bandwidth.  The perceptual changes are nearly always smooth and 
progressive, consistent with auditory filters with rounded tops.

And speech perception does deteriorate at high levels, probably due 
to broadening of the auditory filters.  See, for example:

Studebaker, G. A., Sherbecoe, R. L., McDaniel, D. M., Gwaltney, C. 
A., 1999. Monosyllabic word recognition at higher-than-normal speech 
and noise levels. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105, 2431-2444.

Best wishes,

Brian Moore

Brian C. J. Moore, Ph.D, FMedSci, FRS,
Professor of Auditory Perception,
Department of Experimental Psychology,
University of Cambridge,
Downing Street,
Cambridge CB2 3EB,
UK
Tel. +44 (0) 1223 333574
Fax. +44 (0) 1223 333564
http://hearing.psychol.cam.ac.uk