Dear List,
In this thread: ³A new paradigm?(On pitch and periodicity ..)² the
original start of all this was the question of Nedra Floyd-Pautler about
auditory illusions in relation to hearing aids.
But it was the comment of Randy Randhawa addressed to her with the
following content:
In my opinion the most enduring (over 200 years) of all
auditory "illusions" is what has been called the "missing fundamental". The
fact that this has not been satisfactorily resolved by the tortured use of
existing signal processing techniques leads some, including yours truly, to
believe that the auditory system has figured out a unique way to do
frequency analysis and to meet the dictum in biology that "form follows
function". Taking into account where we are and the discussions that take
place, e.g. this forum, it is interesting that there has been no discussion
as to why the cochlear has the shape it does. Therefore some experimental
phenomenon that we may call as an illusion, could have a very natural
consequence of how frequency analysis is done. One is lead to believe that
we are truly very far from understanding how the auditory system works and
therefore hearing aid designs are a bit of a hoax foisted on
the "proletariat". Sorry if I sound a bit harsh, but I think it is time
people recognized that the emperor has not clothes.
And sorry for those who have other ideas, I completely agree with Randy¹s
remarks here above. And I have reasons for this opinion.
Although not being an auditory expert, but having an academic applied
physics background I have studied already for more than ten years the
functionality of the mammalian hearing sense.
Together with ENT MD J. Alexander de Ru I have recently published a booklet
with the following title:
Applying Physics Makes Auditory Sense
With subtitle:
A new paradigm in hearing
This booklet describes in the first chapter Introduction the objections
we have against a number of existing hypotheses, simply because they are at
variance with general laws of physics.
In the second chapter The new hypothesis we describe how based on our
findings the mammalian hearing sense can function in such a way that it is
on the one hand in full agreement with the rules and laws of general
physics and mechanics and that on the other hand it explains clearly all
the salient mysteries and anomalies, has the potential to explain even much
more yet unclear details in our auditory system and predicts other
verifiable hearing phenomena.
The third chapter Methods and experiments for verification deals with
perception experiments in which the ?missing fundamental¹ and the ?strike
note of bells¹ are found to be normal hearing phenomena, so no illusions,
while the ?shift in pitch¹, described in literature as result of a uniform
frequency shift in higher ?incomplete harmonic¹ sound complexes, is found
as an illusion, based on subjective perception of musically trained
experimenters.
The other four chapters describe details about the functioning of the
cochlea.
If you combine this with the formulation of Richard Lyon in his comment to
Ita Katz:
It would be much more robust to say that "The pitch is determined based on
an approximately common periodicity of outputs of the cochlea," which I
believe is consistent with your intent.
Why is this better?
First, it doesn't say the periodicity is determined; what is determined is
the pitch (even that is a bit of stretch, but let's go with it).
Second, it doesn't depend on whether the signal is periodic, that is,
whether harmonics exist.
Third, it doesn't depend on being able to isolate and separately
characterize components, harmonic or otherwise.
Fourth, it doesn't need "multiples" (or divisors), but relies on the
property of periodicity that a signal with a given period is also periodic
at multiples of that period, so it only needs to look for "common"
periodicities--which doesn't require any arithmetic, just simple neural
circuits. Fifth, it admits approximation, so that things like "the strike
note of a chime" and noise-based pitch can be accommodated.
Sixth, it recognizes that the cochlea has a role in pitch perception. It's
still not complete or perfect, but I think presents a better picture of how
it actually works, in a form that can be realistically modeled.
You will observe that all these six aspects are forming parts of the
concept we have named a new paradigm in hearing.
You can download the e-book version of our booklet from the website of the
University of Utrecht:
http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/med/2011-0204-200555/UUindex.html
But for your convenience I have attached the PDF version of the booklet to
this message
Regards
Pim Heerens
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