Brief tones inject extra frequencies called spectral splatter into the stimulus

Evidence

In sum, a long-duration tone has only one frequency: it is frequency specific. A shortduration tone can never be frequency specific. The duration of a tone has a drastic influence on the frequencies present in the stimulus, and has a primary effect of broadening the spectral peak of the stimulus. The increase in the frequencies present in the stimulus is called spectral splatter, which is characterized by the bandwidth, or the range of frequencies contained within the stimulus. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 178

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines spectral splatter and bandwidth, key concepts for understanding how brief stimuli (like clicks or onsets) distort pure-tone perception.
• XREF: Connects to the uncertainty principle in physics — frequency and time localization cannot both be sharp — and to windowing artifacts in signal processing.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does spectral splatter interact with hearing-impaired listeners’ reduced frequency selectivity?

Related

• Short tones smear extra frequencies into their spectra, a cost called spectral splatter. (similarity 0.90)
• Longer pure-tone durations produce narrower spectral peaks with less splatter (similarity 0.84)
• Tones confound gap detection with spectral-change detection. (similarity 0.81)
• Inserting a temporal gap into a stimulus produces spectral splatter at the gap edges (similarity 0.81)
• Short sound durations necessarily produce broad frequency bandwidths. (similarity 0.80)
• Audiometry pure-tone durations are set by perception, not acoustic independence (similarity 0.80)
• Time and frequency representations are linked so short durations broaden bandwidth (similarity 0.79)
• Abrupt tone onset and offset generate broadband transient energy at distant frequencies. (similarity 0.79)
• Brief tone durations severely impair frequency discrimination (similarity 0.79)