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I recently came across a fairly rare book on infrasound (shipped in from a bookseller in Spain, no less) which prompted a few questions. It's from the 1970s, and despite recording amazing work it's clear that the topic was exploratory and the answers not comprehensive.
Bass below 100Hz but especially below 50Hz start hitting resonant points of the body like the stomach and chest cavity. I would like to understand if those inputs are primarily sent to auditory pathways or if other pathways are taken (e.g., up through the vagus nerve and itsauditory auricular branch) and the percept is integrated at higher stages of processing.
I'm sure at least part of the way I posed the question is inexpert or jumbles the vocabulary. What I'm really looking for is citations so I can better understand this aspect of audition. Since the auditory nuclei brain show tonotopy I assume that part of the answer will be that there are pathways specific to low frequencies, while another part will be that low frequencies are nothing special and take the same pathways as most of the sound we hear, through the cochlea.
The interesting thing with infrasound specifically is that by requiring immense SPLs even to be perceived it will radiate both acoustically and through structure borne vibrations. That means perception must involve both the acoustic pathway through the outer and middle ears as well as direct bone conduction. But since we're talking about organs being vibrated now, a lot has to be stimulated, and maybe that means low frequency perception, or at least very low frequency perception, is multisensory from the outset.
Bass below 100Hz but especially below 50Hz start hitting resonant points of the body like the stomach and chest cavity. I would like to understand if those inputs are primarily sent to auditory pathways or if other pathways are taken (e.g., up through the vagus nerve and its
I'm sure at least part of the way I posed the question is inexpert or jumbles the vocabulary. What I'm really looking for is citations so I can better understand this aspect of audition. Since the auditory nuclei brain show tonotopy I assume that part of the answer will be that there are pathways specific to low frequencies, while another part will be that low frequencies are nothing special and take the same pathways as most of the sound we hear, through the cochlea.
The interesting thing with infrasound specifically is that by requiring immense SPLs even to be perceived it will radiate both acoustically and through structure borne vibrations. That means perception must involve both the acoustic pathway through the outer and middle ears as well as direct bone conduction. But since we're talking about organs being vibrated now, a lot has to be stimulated, and maybe that means low frequency perception, or at least very low frequency perception, is multisensory from the outset.
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