Temporal and spectoral masking play an important role in human auditory system - but why did our systems develop this system? I have a theory, but I wondered if any readers would know, or could think of a reason it would be benificial. Could it be for 'bandwidth / processing' reasons (like we use for audio compression systems) could it be for comprehension reason, a for of pre-shaping the auditory path (like we pre-process video material prior to full DSP encoding).
What are your thoughts?Why did the human auditory system develop psychoacoustic masking, and do any other creatures share this trait?
Is part of this just the logarithmic compression of hearing? Is it 7 violins sound 2X as loud as one? So if you are listening to a small sound mixed in with more sound, it is harder to hear.
Does it help you to think of the poor whales beaching themselves rather than the pain of the sonar from ships? The more sensitive the instrument, the more problems with too much to sense.
Is this the right tract?Why did the human auditory system develop psychoacoustic masking, and do any other creatures share this trait?
But masking is a physics/acoustics phenomena and not only associated with the biological senses. The compression increases the masking. It is a disadvantage not to hear predators approaching because of background noise. Cat's eye pupil does the opposite. Report Abuse
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