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From: bloch@mandrill.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
Newsgroups: comp.dsp
Subject: Re: Psychoacoustics
Message-ID: <7479@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu>
Date: 16 Nov 89 23:38:24 GMT
References: <1989Oct31.193130.1685@eddie.mit.edu> <19140@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <642@augean.OZ>
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Reply-To: bloch@mandrill.UUCP (Steve Bloch)
Organization: University of California, San Diego
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gvokalek@augean.OZ (George Vokalek) writes:
>...Moving the head by several cm therefore represents a
>significant fraction of one wavelength, resulting in a significantly
>different sound pattern in the ear.
>
>Note that if this means that you should be able to localise high
>frequency sound more accurately than low frequency sound.  Personally,
>this seems reasonable - for instance its easy to find a mosquito.
>I cant think of any Low freq examples.

Well, this makes sense as long as the wavelengths don't get shorter
than the diameter of the head; after that everything goes to hell.

But in general, that's pretty good, sonny, but that ain't the way I
heerd it.  Way I heerd it, you can more easily localize high BAND-
WIDTH sound than low BANDWIDTH sound.  A mosquito is an example of
this too, of course.  A good example (since we're talking wildlife)
is from ornithology: many common songbirds use a high but nearly pure
whistle when a predator shows up and they want to warn one another
without being located, but they use a wide-band "chuck" when the
intruder is one they think they can scare away; this way they can
find one another easily and gang up on it.

"Writers are a funny breed -- I should know." -- Jane Siberry

bloch%cs@ucsd.edu