A Biological Question, Sample Rate

[Roderick]

Im doing a music history class and we are doing lots of work analyzing music, being objectively better that others because of overtones, natural rhythm and such.
We were discussing harmonic overtones and it was asked how fast does the ear hear music.
the prof has a friend in Germany who has been Studying music for decades and mentioned that after about 10,000 clicks per second we stop noticing the clicks and they become like a single sound.

It can perhaps be compared cartoons. 24 FPS it seems seamless but 15FPS, choppy.

The question is what it the average "sample rate" of the human ear ?
has anyone ever looked into this.

the idea behind the question is if it is lower than 10K we must no actually hear 10k+ HZ but our minds must read the overtone signature, that is the picture of the particular sound we hear.

hope this does not sound to complicated

Fjcroderick@gmail.com

[Malcolm Boyce]

Direct comparison between video and audio, although intuitive, is incorrect most times.

Perception shouldn't be confused with the actual functioning of the hearing system. In the same way you describe the 24FPS video being "seamless" though your eyes see everything in and in between those frames, your ears pass on all the information in the audio band. It's how your brain translates information that is altering how you perceive the "clicks" changing to a "tone".

[Roderick]

what about the stuff above 20K, do our ears pick it up and then be filtered by our brain like a low pass filter. I found a pair of headphones by Sony claiming up to the 100K HZ range ? it this rage useful, it it noticeable? it would seem that sony is wasting their time if we cant hear it ?

[macrae11]

I would hazard a guess that in regards to the headphones in question, the 100K frequency response is for marketing more than anything else.

My understanding of the ears workings is that the frequencies up there aren't even getting to our brain. The biomechanical function of the ear drum and cochlea simply don't work up that high. Which is why we starting to lose frequencies as we get older. Just as muscles and skin get weaker and have less elasticity, so do the membrane's in the ear. As they get stiffer and more resistant to movement we lose more and more high frequencies.

This is just my not so educated guess on how I've pieced things together after talking to various audiologists and ENT's.

That being said the threshold is different for everyone. I can still "hear" 20k. Albeit at about -40dB, so I assume I could "hear" tones even a bit above 20k, although I have no way to test that. Actually I might have just though of a way to test that, but I'm not going to bother doing it right now. There are also people who can "sense" really high frequencies up to around 40-50k. There's certain security systems that emit ultrasonic frequencies that can affect people and cause them to become nauseous when they come in contact with them. Not sure how relevant that is to the headphone discussion, but it's interesting to think about.