What we can hear depends first of all on what the ear hears. It also depends on what the brain does with what the ear hears. On the one hand, there has been considerable study of the mechanical-electrical operation of the ear. Generally speaking the ear acts as a complex time frequency analyzer. On the other hand, there are extensive investigations as to what one hears subjectively; that is, the psychological aspects of hearing. Psychoacoustics includes and attempts to relate these studies. Why high pitch sounds are more easily masked by low pitch sounds than vice versa and how we can pick out a sound in space are discussed in order to illustrate the psychoacoustical viewpoint.

Author: Harris, Gerard G.
Affiliation: Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., Murray Hill, NJ
JAES Volume 9 Issue 1 pp. 2-6; January 1961
Publication Date: January 1, 1961

Click to purchase paper as a non-member or you can login as an AES member to see more options.

No AES members have commented on this paper yet.

Subscribe to this discussion

To be notified of new comments on this paper you can subscribe to this RSS feed. Forum users should login to see additional options.

Start a discussion!

If you would like to start a discussion about this paper and are an AES member then you can login here:
Username:
Password:

If you are not yet an AES member and have something important to say about this paper then we urge you to join the AES today and make your voice heard. You can join online today by clicking here.