Psycho…what?

Last week we started on the topic of sound and the way humans perceive it however, I couldn’t finish it due to space constraints. Now I am back to finish, or continue, on that train of thought. The last topic I wrote about was on psychoacoustics. Do you remember what that was? If you didn’t I can remind you.

“Psychoacoustics is a branch of psychology that is concerned with how humans perceive and understand sound. It’s the scientific study of the mechanisms in our bodies that interpret sound waves, as well as the processes that occur in our brains when we listen.”

With that being said, learning about psychoacoustics can come in handy if you ever are in an instance where you perceive something someone said to you in a different tone than what the actual person had said it in (or so what they say). Our perception can be distorted through our own psychological thought process and honestly how our emotions are at that given moment.

The sound waves we pick up are interpreted into thoughts. With the knowledge that our ears can pick up the most miniscule nuances, such as all the “background” noises, those are filtered out since they are deemed as unimportant and too much stimuli.

What about the act of figuring out where a specific noise is coming from? My research finds the answer to be “sound localization.” Because of how our brain works and that we have ears on either side of our head, as well as picking out discrepancies in tone, timing, pitch and we are able to locate the source of the sound. This also can be helped by moving our head around, much like you see an animals ear twitch and move. Bats are very good at this, so much that you might have heard of “ecolocation” which they are known famously for having.

One other facet that is in the realm of psychoacoustics is “sound masking.” An example of this could be you talking with a friend, coworker, family member, honestly anyone, and in your surrounding area there is a larger sound that muffles, or drowns out the voice or sound that person is making at that given moment.

One last thing I will cover here that is a big topic in psychoacoustics is music. That is because music has the power to change and alter our moods from moment to moment. Have you ever listened to classical music and a moving picture happens in your mind’s eye? Or maybe that happens with other forms of music to you. The movie “Fantasia” comes to mind, one of my favorites. The timbre, pitch, loudness and tone make up individual characteristic of each characters.

What are some examples that you can think of in relation to psychoacoustics in your life? Can you pick out when sound masking happens? The next time you go to a concert or recital, even a movie theatre be like Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” and try different seats (if you get there early enough to not disturb others) to find your sweet spot for hearing.

“If we accept that sound is vibration and we know that vibration touches every part of our physical being, then we understand that sound is heard not only through our ears but through every cell in our bodies.” - Dr. Mitchell Gaynor

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