Bertram Scharf and his critical contributions to the field

Abstract

Jerry Tobias introduced me to Bert Scharf via his book Foundations of Modern Auditory Theory. Our research in the 1970s was on the prediction of speech intelligibility from acoustic measurements; the similarity between Fletcher's 20 frequency bands of equal contributions to intelligibility and psychoacoustic measurements of critical bands was of great interest. Bert's chapter on critical bands provided an insightful, comprehensive, concise, and critical review of the state of the art in critical-band research. Our mutual research interests brought us together when he asked me to review a draft of a paper he was preparing. My review was highly critical and after submitting it to him I felt I had been too unforgiving in my review (reviewers can be wrong). I called him to explain that I had been overly critical of a fine paper. His response was the opposite of what I expected. He said it was the best review he had received and that he was extremely grateful for my input. I realized then that he—not only set high standards for others—but for himself as well. By adhering consistently to his high standards, his many contributions to the field have been long-lasting and critical.