Quantitative evaluation of tonal sound frequency perception by a man

The possibility of objective purely instrumental investigation of human sensory characteristics in real time is demonstrated by the example of a tonal auditory analyzer. In accordance with our earlier-developed approach, root-mean-square errors of deviations of the tonal sound instantaneous frequency from its mean during vocal reproduction of tonal sounds by probationers, as well as during sound reproduction with the help of a special electronic audio-frequency oscillator, the latter necessitating continuous voluntary control for the desired frequency to be sustained, are chosen as such characteristics. The dependence of the root-mean-square deviation of the reproduced frequency on the mean frequency of the presented tonal sound is found to be virtually linear for both ways of reproduction. The proposed investigation technique can be modified without any radical changes to study the characteristics of human sensory analyzers as regards stimuli of other modalities with a view to assessing the state of the human operator sensory sphere, solving the problems of man-machine interface synthesis and constructing “virtual reality” systems.