AET 1380 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Psychoacoustics, Color Blindness, Sound Localization
2 Jun 2019
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Psychoacoustics: the study of the perception of sound. Fundamental and overtones: most sounds are made up of more than one discrete frequency, consisting of, fundamental = lowest frequency present, overtones = all other than the fundamental. Harmonics = whole number multiples of the fundamental. The ear is relatively insensitive to low frequencies at low level. Depending on the volume, we do not hear high frequencies as well as we hear middle frequencies. Masking: when loud signals prevent ear from hearing softer sounds i. e. louder sound hides" the softer sound, greatest when frequencies are similar, also used in same modern delivery mediums (e. g. mp3) Psychoacoustics: perceptual noise shaping for mp3 compression, visual analogy: color blindness. If you were painting a picture for someone who is color blind, you wouldn"t use colors they cannot perceive: for mp3 compression, if you know what sounds a listener cannot perceive, you can remove them.
