The Perceptual Structure of Sound
The Perceptual Structure of Sound
English | 2023 | ISBN: 3031255658 | 840 Pages | PDF (True) | 22 MB
English | 2023 | ISBN: 3031255658 | 840 Pages | PDF (True) | 22 MB
This book presents a comprehensive review of how acoustic waves are processed by the auditory system into structured sounds such as musical melodies, speech utterances, or environmental sounds. After an introduction, an overview is given of how the ears distribute acoustic information over a large array of frequency channels that contain the auditory information used by the central nervous system to generate a mental image of what is happening around the listener. This process, called auditory scene analysis, consists of two stages. In the first stage, auditory units are formed such as musical tones and speech syllables. Each auditory unit is perceived at a well-defined moment in time, the beat location of that auditory unit. Moreover, from this process of auditory-unit formation, the auditory attributes of these auditory units emerge, such as their timbre, their pitch, their loudness, and their perceived location. Each of these attributes is discussed in the corresponding chapter.