Spectral Basis of Auditory “Jitter” Detection
Irwin W. Pollack · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1971
The contribution of high-frequency and of low-frequency spectral information to the detection of temporal variability or “jitter” of auditory pulse trains was examined. Pulse trains were subjected to low-pass, to bandpass, and to high-pass filtering. Jitter discrimination for low-frequency pulse trains is substantially poorer than for high-frequency pulse trains. The reason is not that the low spectral frequencies within low-frequency pulse trains interfere with jitter discrimination, nor that low-frequency pulse trains contain insufficient high-frequency spectral information. Rather, it appears that the spacing between high-frequency spectral components of low-frequency pulse trains is too close to permit effective resolution.