In tests measuring response to artificial sounds, the researchers found that neurons in the human auditory cortex responded to specific frequencies with unexpected precision. Frequency differences as small as a quarter of a tone (in Western music, the smallest interval is half a tone) could be reliably detected from individual responses of single neurons.
Such resolution exceeds that typically found in the auditory cortex of other mammalian species (except, perhaps, for bats, which uniquely make use of their auditory system), serving as a possible correlate of the finding that the human auditory system can discriminate between frequencies better than animals. The result suggests that the neural representation of frequency in the human brain has unique features.
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