EXP 3202C Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Psychophysics, Fundamental Frequency, White Noise
Document Summary
7 perceptual dimensions comes from 2 physical dimensions. The 2 physical dimensions of sound are frequency and amplitude. The 2 psycho or what we perceive is pitch, loudness, and octave: stimulus for sound is mechanical energy which causes air to vibrate. It is easier to tell the difference between frequencies in the beginning of our range: by tuning our auditory systems to the human voice, allows us to begin to learn language. Other species sensory systems are not set up to do that: below 20 hz frequency becomes rhythm, animals and other species are better at detection than identification. This means for any given frequency that we are discussing then about 1- 5,000 hz will always seem loudest. We would have to make the frequency more intense past 5,000 hz to make it seem louder: the music scale- frequencies of c on keyboard- still make a log scale.
