EDIT: These discussions were in another thread and have been moved here.
By the same token, when it comes to audio, tremendous amount of listening tests have been performed by many researchers (both in medical field and entertainment/education). That research is then combined to draw conclusions that are durable and hugely useful.
Here again is an example from Dr. Toole's book:
Here listening tests are used to determine audibility of room reflections. They present the same complexity you are talking about where reflections arrive at slight delays. We see that depending on the delay&level, we don't hear them as "echos."
Now do we care why that so called Haas effect occurs? No. We just need to know that and stop worrying about room reflections causing smearing of sound (common myth).
Likely reason for this is that once man moved into caves, reflections became the norm and the brain adapted to ignore them if they are a constant. But again, that aspect is for some other researchers to worry about than us trying to enjoy music and need to know how to configure our speakers in a room.
The key thing is that the things people say audio science doesn't understand, we do understand. There are no mysteries here.
We don't need to explain how the brain works. We simply need to observe what it does. People like ice cream. Do you doubt that observation because we don't know exactly how the brain arrives at that conclusion across so much of the population?Science can not explain how such a Rube Goldberg scheme can detect sound difference of millisecond degrees.
By the same token, when it comes to audio, tremendous amount of listening tests have been performed by many researchers (both in medical field and entertainment/education). That research is then combined to draw conclusions that are durable and hugely useful.
Here again is an example from Dr. Toole's book:
Here listening tests are used to determine audibility of room reflections. They present the same complexity you are talking about where reflections arrive at slight delays. We see that depending on the delay&level, we don't hear them as "echos."
Now do we care why that so called Haas effect occurs? No. We just need to know that and stop worrying about room reflections causing smearing of sound (common myth).
Likely reason for this is that once man moved into caves, reflections became the norm and the brain adapted to ignore them if they are a constant. But again, that aspect is for some other researchers to worry about than us trying to enjoy music and need to know how to configure our speakers in a room.
The key thing is that the things people say audio science doesn't understand, we do understand. There are no mysteries here.
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