Re: About importance of "phase" in sound recognition

[Laszlo Toth <tothl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010, Parncutt, Richard (richard.parncutt@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> So evolutionary-ecological theory predicts phase
> sensitivity in the onset, and insensitivity after that.

Sorry for using your comment for this purpose, but I would like to point
on yet another source of confusion with the term "phase". Mathematically,
only periodic signals can have a phase, so anything that has an onset is
excluded. In this case you are talking about "delay" or "time shift".
Tha main diference is that phase shift is limited by the period length of
the periodic signal, while time shift can be of any size.

(If I were a mathematician, I'd say that, as a periodic signal must be
infinite, no such signal can exist in real life...)

               Laszlo Toth
        Hungarian Academy of Sciences         *
  Research Group on Artificial Intelligence   *   "Failure only begins
     e-mail: tothl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx            *    when you stop trying"
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