Pseudoscience in audio - Milind N. Kunchur

[Kal Rubinson]

On 8/26/2023 at 12:29 AM, fas42 said:

Since this thread is nominally about Kunchur, I checked out what he's currently doing- and found this, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.00084 - The human auditory system and audio.

 

I'll leave it as an exercise for the usual suspects to point out every instance of "bad science!" in the piece ... .

I scanned it and noted that most of his graphs/figures are familiar and acceptable.  I am not willing to expend the effort to read it. 

[Kal Rubinson]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

Think I'm on a roll here ...

 

Curious, I looked further, and found, https://crev.info/2012/12/eye-retina-is-analog-to-digital-converter/

 

 

So, the new question is, are any of the human senses analogue ... ?

 

This is a superficial "pop" article written for the general reader and not a scientific article.  It is chock full of plainly incorrect statements that would evoke gasps (or chuckles) from anyone who works in the field.  In particular, the use of the term "digital" is sloppy and, imho, panders to the non-scientist.  

[Kal Rubinson]

10 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

And I was so looking forward to feeding DSD1048576 directly into my brain!

 

Mebbe but not via the retina (which is, technically, part of the CNS).

[Kal Rubinson]

Unfortunately, it is simplistic to equate the "all or nothing spikes" of action potentials to a digital signal.  Those in the field appreciate that there are phenomena, such as presynaptic inhibition, that can modulate the effect of individual APs.  The distinction between analog and digital in the CNS is not as clear cut as it is in electronics.

[Kal Rubinson]

8 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

Or you could consider electricity itself digital as electrons move from one atom to the next.

Interesting but is the movement of an electron significant.  If not, it is not a meaningful signal.

[Kal Rubinson]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Gosh, this is sounding mighty "digital", to me ...

Or just a matter of polarity.

[Kal Rubinson]

35 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

@Kal Rubinson, there's a topic I've been interested in for a while on which I haven't been able to find good peer-reviewed journal articles, and wondered whether you might point me toward any. I recall reading without citation that there were auditory cortex neurons sensitive to timing (transients, differences in arrival time) distinct from those sensitive to frequency. Any thoughts on where I might find some good published papers on the subject?

It is not really my field (or was) but the way to find the stuff is the way you find anything else, a search that drives from source to source. 

Just searching for "auditory cortex timing" should get you started.  It took me straight to https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1012656107 and the references in that paper might provide a useful path for investigation.

 

The problem for non-academics is getting access to the original papers instead of relying on watered-down reports in the popular press.