Patent ID: 7711123

Claim:
A method for dividing each of multiple channels of digital audio signals into auditory events, each of which auditory events tends to be perceived as separate and distinct, comprising detecting every change exceeding a threshold in the spectral profile with respect to time in a frequency domain representation of the audio signal in each of the channels, said detecting being insensitive to changes in amplitude of the overall spectral profile, and in each channel, identifying a continuous succession of auditory event boundaries in the audio signal, in which such every change in the spectral profile with respect to time exceeding a threshold defines a boundary, wherein each auditory event is an audio segment between adjacent boundaries and there is only one auditory event between such adjacent boundaries, each boundary representing the end of the preceding event and the beginning of the next event such that a continuous succession of auditory events is obtained, wherein neither auditory event boundaries, auditory events, nor any characteristics of an auditory event are known in advance of identifying the continuous succession of auditory event boundaries and obtaining the continuous succession of auditory events.