Evidence for the 3-Bark integration interval
Brian A. Hanson, Hector Raul Javkin · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1988
It is generally accepted that sound energy within a 1-Bark interval is integrated by the ear. Chistovich et al. [in Frontiers of Speech Communication Research, edited by Lindblom and Ohman (Academic, New York, 1979), pp. 143–157] found evidence of a larger integration interval, of approximately 3 Bark, for vowel perception. Klatt [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 77, S7 (1985)] found that listeners could distinguish between vowels whose formant differences were compensated by bandwidth differences (so that cue trading did not occur) and concluded that the 3-Bark interval was not supported. The present paper analyzes the effect of different intervals on the center of gravity analysis described in Jaykin et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 82, S81 (1988)] adapted from Chistovich and Chernova [Speech Commun. 5, 3–16 (1986)], and compares that analysis with a perceptual experiment testing the effect of harmonics on the perception of formants. The results support the hypothesis that the minimum interval is about 3 Bark. Our model may explain the lack of cue trading between formants and bandwidths.