1. B. Lopes Cardozo¹): “Short-term auditory discriminations”

Abstract

In pure sinusoids (“Gaussion” envelope) the frequency discrimination can be as good as 0.1 per cent or even better, as measured by excellent subjects in a sensitive binary choice test. This result applies to a frequency of 1 kc/sec and to durations longer than 1/20 second. For shorter times, however, there is a regular recession of discrimination. In fact, short-term frequency discrimination is almost inversely proportional to the duration of the sinusoids applied. For 1 kc/sec, a good subject achieves a value of δf.T = 0.05, where δ f is the just discriminable frequency difference, T being the duration.