Beyond Perception
Eight parts in which you explore, by experiment, how the ear interprets sound: a note that is not in the spectrum, a staircase that never ends, the single pulse of two tones, a sound that changes direction, a tone that vanishes in noise, a melody emerging from inside a sound, a harmonic breaking away from the blend and, at the end, a short blind test. Each part has a four-step panel beside it. There is no claim of any effect; this is a journey in perception and listening.
Why this order? The first stage is pitch: the 200 Hz series keeps its pitch when its fundamental is removed, and the Shepard tone never reaches a ceiling. The second stage is the ear's limits: two 330 Hz tones swell like a single pulse with a difference of half to one and a half hertz, a single sound moves through seven directions (with an arrival difference of at most 0.66 ms), and a 1 kHz tone vanishes into noise in 4 dB steps. The third stage is whole and part: a melody emerges from ten overtones, the 4th harmonic breaks away from the timbre when shifted by 7%; the Lab repeats five of them without guidance and ends with a blind test. Eight parts, 66 minutes in all; headphones recommended for Where Is the Sound?
0/8 stops completed
Stop 01/08 · I Pitch
The Missing Note
The fundamental goes; the pitch stays.
Parts
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
- Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Parts are not locked; progress stays on this device. The parts are listening practice with no claim of any effect. You can see how each session was made in its details.
Sources
The explanations in the parts rest on these sources; they make no claim of any effect. The citations were checked against Crossref, PubMed or the publisher's record.
The pitch of the missing fundamental, beats, directional cues and masking: a standard textbook of auditory perception.
Moore BCJ. An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing. Brill; 2013. ISBN 9789004252424
The circularity of pitch judgements: the Shepard tone (The Endless Staircase).
The threshold for hearing a mistuned harmonic as a separate tone (From Parts to Whole).
Two close tones: beating and the critical band (Two Tones, One Pulse).