Temporal Segmentation-Influence of the Envelope Function on Perception

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Abstract
This paper describes the influence of the envelope function on the spectrum of gated sounds. Comparisons are made between the spectrum of sine waves gated by rectangular, trapezoidal, and exponential envelopes. It is shown that the exponential envelope approximates the physical reality of the natural vocal emission. The spectral distortion given by such gating functions is calculated and it is shown quantitatively that they introduce less spectral distortion than rectangular and trapezoidal envelopes. A relationship between the on/off slopes time constant and the duration of the gated sound is defined. This relationship gives a minimum of spectral distortion while ensuring that the envelope function maintains some physical reality. The influence of the spectral distortion on perception is discussed as a function of the critical bands and the masking effect. It is instrumentally shown that, for sine wave sounds with frequencies ƒ, exponentially gated during to with to > 1/ƒ, the widening and the rebounds of the spectrum towards the high frequency range are masked by the specific loudness of the central component; it is essentially the low frequency range which is altered at the perceptual level.

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