Traditional analysis of spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (SOCT) signals is limited by an uncertainty relationship between time (depth) and frequency (wavelength). The use of a bilinear time-frequency distribution for analysis, such as those that compose Cohen's class of functions, may provide a way to avoid this limitation. Here we present the relationship between traditional SOCT analysis and the relevant Cohen class functions: the Wigner and Choi-Williams distributions. While cross terms that arise in these bilinear time-frequency distributions have been viewed as an artifact, here we identify these terms with temporal coherence, which contains significant information about the signal through phase relationships. The utility of time-frequency distributions is illustrated through analysis of calculated signals.