Homer Jacobson's research while affiliated with Brookhaven National Laboratory and other places

Calculations of the informational capacity of the human ear are made by computing the number of discriminable soundpatterns per second, and applying the Shannon information theory. A maximum of 104 bits/sec transmission found. This is compared with the capacity of existing auditory channels and recording media, and with the rate of actual informationperception from speech and music. It is shown that a capacity of upwards from 5 × 104 bits/sec, depending on the informational match to the ear, is necessary for high fidelity transmission or recording. It is also shown that the brain can utilize less than 1 percent of the information transmitted by the ear. Finally, an average capacity of about 0.3 bit/sec, or of 40 tones/sec, is calculated for an individual cochlear fiber.