ABSTRACT
Discrimination experiments are among the most interesting areas in psychoacoustics because the conflicts between the molar and molecular levels are particularly sharp. This chapter examines psychophysical data concerning the discrimination of a small change in the intensity of a sinusoid. Riesz studied the discrimination of an intensity change by adding the output of two oscillators of slightly different frequencies and amplitudes. The rate of beating is important in measuring discrimination of the fluctuation, so Riesz first found the rate of fluctuation to which the ear seemed most sensitive. If intensity discrimination data are occasionally discrepant, then frequency discrimination data are chaotic. Any place theory faces the problem of explaining how the spatial distribution of cochlear activity associated with a sinusoidal stimulus elicits the percept of a single pitch. Grey’s “principle of maximum stimulation” is an example of an early concern with how a broad spatial pattern was coded into pitch.
