White noise’s critical-band intensity rises above 5 Bark because bandwidth grows there

Evidence

White noise shows a rise of IG/Io above 5 Bark because critical bandwidth increases above 500 Hz (5 Bark). Narrow-band noise, one critical band wide, is indicated in this drawing by a triangular shape with a base of 2 Bark. This is so because a window of I-Bark width starts to collect intensity if moved from low to high z-values when its centre is 0.5 Bark left of the limit of the critical-band wide noise. The peak of the triangularly shaped area corresponds to the total intensity, which is also reached by the white noise at exactly this value. This coincidence indicates that the width of the narrow-band noise is exactly one critical band wide. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 961

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies why the triangular critical-band-intensity plot appears and what its 2-Bark base and peak coincidence tell the experimenter about the stimulus.