AI Article Synopsis
- The time-frequency uncertainty principle establishes a limit on how precisely we can measure both the timing and frequency of a signal, which cannot be smaller than 1/(4 π).
- Research shows that humans can often judge sound frequency and timing with much greater precision than this limit, achieving it more than ten times over, primarily due to their impressive timing skills.
- These findings suggest that our brains use complex, nonlinear processing algorithms for sound interpretation, rather than simple linear models, emphasizing the importance of timing in how we perceive different sounds.
Article Abstract
The time-frequency uncertainty principle states that the product of the temporal and frequency extents of a signal cannot be smaller than 1/(4 π). We study human ability to simultaneously judge the frequency and the timing of a sound. Our subjects often exceeded the uncertainty limit, sometimes by more than tenfold, mostly through remarkable timing acuity. Our results establish a lower bound for the nonlinearity and complexity of the algorithms employed by our brains in parsing transient sounds, rule out simple "linear filter" models of early auditory processing, and highlight timing acuity as a central feature in auditory object processing.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.044301 | DOI Listing |
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