Critical Bands

• Perceptually uniform measure of frequency, non-proportional to width of masking curve

  About 100 Hz for masking frequency < 500 Hz, grow larger and larger above 500 Hz.

• The width is called the size of the critical band

Barks

• Introduce new unit for frequency called a bark (after Barkhausen)

  1 Bark = width of one critical band

  For frequency < 500 Hz,

  For frequency > 500 Hz,

• Masking Thresholds on critical band scale: