  The time-frequency uncertainty principle states that the product of the
temporal and frequency extents of a signal cannot be smaller than $1/(4\pi)$.
We study human ability to simultaneously judge the frequency and the timing of
a sound. Our subjects often exceeded the uncertainty limit, sometimes by more
than tenfold, mostly through remarkable timing acuity. Our results establish a
lower bound for the nonlinearity and complexity of the algorithms employed by
our brains in parsing transient sounds, rule out simple "linear filter" models
of early auditory processing, and highlight timing acuity as a central feature
in auditory object processing.
