Honoring the contributions of Reinier Plomp in psychoacoustics

Abstract

Reinier Plomp has had a huge impact on the field of psychoacoustics of a period of 40 years. Many of this papers have become regarded as ‘‘classical.’’ His studies on the ‘‘science of science’’ led to the conclusion that the number of published papers cited more than 25 times is a good indicator of an author’s scientific impact. Seven out of the first ten of Plomp’s publications (and 27 in total) satisfy this criterion, which is a remarkable achievement. This lecture briefly reviews some of the most highly cited of Plomp’s papers, concentrating on temporal integration at threshold, the rate of decay of auditory sensation, the ability to ‘‘hear out’’ partials in complex tones, the perception of the pitch of complex tones, and tonal consonance and the critical bandwidth. Many of the concepts introduced in these papers were novel at the time, but are now widely accepted. His data have stood the test of time. I, and many others, are grateful to him for the clarity of his writing, the breadth of his conception, his ability to identify key problems, and his role as ‘‘Promoter’’ of many fine Ph.D. students.