Julf wrote: > I think all that that paper shows is that the human ear doesn't perform > a fourier transform, but uses discrete, parallel sensors (hair cells).
I thought that there was an implication that human hearing might have more discriminatory ability than previously suspected. I shouldn't imagine fourier transforms come into it but nature does appear to make use of obscure physical phenomena sometimes: for example quantum entanglement has been proposed to offer a explanation for the almost 100% efficiency of photosynthesis in plants, & for the navigation based on minute changes in the earth's magnetic field by birds (robins were the subject of the study). It is only fair to say that alternative mechanisms have also been proposed so the jury is still out on these ideas. Ears have a very curious design & the human brain is simply the most complex object yet discovered. So I think it's reasonable to suggest that psychoacoustics is not as well understood as (say) Nyquist-Shannon sampling theory... Dave :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
