A general model to determine the Difference Limen of Frequency (DLF)

Abstract

Many studies over several decades have studied the relationship between the difference limen for frequency (DLF) for pure tones and various parameters of the pure tones, including frequency, duration, and level. The present study analyzes several data sets in an attempt to provide a general equation to predict DLFs as a function of these three primary parameters. The results show that the data are well fitted by assuming that a power function governs the relationship between log(DLF) and all three parameters (as measured in Hz, ms, and dB for frequency, duration, and level, respectively). An additional improvement in the fits was obtained by including a frequency-duration interaction term that accounted for the sometimes large increase in DLFs when the number of presented cycles of a sinusoid becomes small. Keywords: difference limen of frequency (DLF), frequency, duration, level.