ABSTRACT
CONTENTS 6.1 Subjective Characteristics of Audio Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 6.2 Loudness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 6.3 Equal Loudness Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 6.4 Audio Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 6.5 Perception of Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 6.6 Psychoacoustics Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 6.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Many different listening models based on the fundamentals of psychoacoustics are introduced within this chapter reflecting the many different aspects of the auditory system. Particular attention is given to the limitations of the human auditory system such as masking effects; such effects being able to be exploited for applications such as wideband audio coding.
