Subject: Re: human versus spectral resolution From: "Richard F. Lyon" <DickLyon@xxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 08:05:42 -0700 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>At 10:46 AM +0100 4/3/08, Alain de Cheveigne' wrote: >Nordmark's point not well known or understood, even by savvy signal >processing specialists. It's very common to read that the >Heisenberg/Gabor principle (earlier suggested by Helmholtz) limits >the accuracy of frequency measurement, and that the fact that one >can do better is a paradox. Alain, thanks for quoting Nordmark on that; it's exactly what I had in mind, but you've explained it much better, through him. My point, again, is that it's worth doing the experiment to see whether a human's performance on a task is "better than theory", as a way to get a clue as to whether you're using an inappropriate theory, as in that example. A paradox is a good clue. And yes, the community of "savvy signal processing specialists" is too often ignorant of this distinction, and too easily led astray by the Fourier/Helmholtz/Ohm/Heisenberg concepts. That's why I had Helmholtz and Ohm as the "bad guys" or "anti-heros" in my talk on cochlear modeling retrospective. ( http://www.archive.org/details/Helen_Wills_2007_10_01_Richard_Lyon ) Dick