Information and the Human Ear

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Abstract
Calculations of the informational capacity of the human ear are made by computing the number of discriminable sound patterns per sec and applying the Shannon information theory. A maximum of 104 bits/sec transmission is found. This is compared with the capacity of existing auditory channels and recording media, and with the rate of actual information perception from speech and music. It is shown that a capacity of upwards from 5 x 104 bits/sec, depending on the informational match to the ear, is necessary for high fidelity transmission or recording. It is also shown that the brain can utilize less than 1% of the information transmitted by the ear. Finally, an avg. capacity of about 0.3 bit/sec., or of 40 tones/sec., is calculated for an individual cochlear fiber.

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