More Psychoacoustics

In addition to the psychoacoustic phenomena that I have studied, there is a handful of more interesting things that cause the human perception of sound to differ from the physical reality.

For most frequencies, the perception of pitch varies with the volume of the sound. Higher pitches tend to increase in pitch as they increase in volume, and lower pitches tend to decrease in pitch as they increase in pitch. This makes it important for instrumentalists to tune to each other at the same volume, because it enables them to stay in tune as they play with different dynamics.

The ability for humans to perceive differences in pitch is limited. For very slight changes in pitch, humans cannot perceive the difference despite a physical difference existing in the sound wave.
In the same vein, human perception of differences in loudness are limited.

Masking is another effect that happens when two sounds are played at the same time. When one sound is substantially larger than the other, the quieter one cannot be perceived at all, even though it still physically exists in the system.

Works Cited:

1.  Gunther, Leon. The Physics of Music and Color. New York, New York: Springer, 2012.