Читать книгу Engineering Acoustics - Malcolm J. Crocker - Страница 148

So far we have traced the sound signal down the ear canal to the eardrum, through the auditory ossicles, through the oval window to the cochlear fluid to the basilar membrane and the hair cells, and finally to the neural impulses sent to the brain. How does the brain interpret these signals? Our study now enters the realm of psychology. While the physicist or engineer talks about sound pressure level and frequency, the psychologist talks about loudness and pitch, respectively. The human auditory response to sound is studied by psychoacoustics. In Section 4.3 we shall discuss the relationships between some of the engineering descriptions of sound and the psychological or subjective descriptions of psychoacoustics.