Hearing sensitivity to shifts of rippled-spectrum patterns.

The sensitivity of human hearing to shifts in rippled spectrum patterns of sound was investigated. The test signal was band-limited rippled noise with spectrum ripples of various frequency spacing and bandwidth; this type of sound may be considered as a quantitatively controlled imitation of complex natural sounds. The listener was required to detect a shift in the spectrum ripple phase while keeping the other parameters of the noise constant. For cosine-shaped ripples, the lowest threshold (1.1%) was found at a ripple frequency of 3.5 ripples per octave (rpo), which corresponds to a ripple spacing of 20% of the center frequency. The threshold increased for both lower and higher ripple densities. Qualitatively similar patterns of threshold dependence on ripple density were observed for center frequencies from 1 to 4 kHz. Making the ripples narrower than cosine decreased the thresholds to 0.7%-0.75% for ripple densities of 2-5 rpo. Keeping the ripple width constant at 3.5%-7.5% of the frequency resulted in a monotonic threshold dependence on ripple density: The threshold decreased with decreasing density (down to 0.7%). An excitation-pattern model explains qualitatively the observed dependence of the ripple-phase shift threshold on ripple pattern parameters.