[LAD] twice as loud

[Philipp Überbacher]

Excerpts from fons's message of 2010-07-22 23:13:45 +0200:
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 10:50:58PM +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
> 
> > We may be comparing the wrong thing when we compare with the size of
> > objects to loudness.
> 
> Indeed. I did not mention the visual analogy to suggest
> that the two domains are similar - rather to point out
> they are not. Something that works for one of them does
> not for the other.

What I tried to say is that there might be different cases in each
domain, some of which may be similar to a case in another domain.

> > I wonder how well we can judge something like twice the
> > brightness.
> 
> Same problem. I gues we can't. Or that whatever value
> of 'double' we arrive at will be without meaning.
> 
> My guess so far, but I have *NO* scientific evidence at
> all to support it, just some intuition, is that human
> perception of loudness of a sound is somehow related to
> the extent that a particular sound does prevent us to
> detect other known sounds, i.e. to masking effects. 
> 
> CIao,

Interesting idea. From the little I read about masking it is a complex
thing as well, frequency, SPL, time between sounds, all that and
possibly more matters. We could think about what makes judging twice the
loudness more difficult and maybe find a relation to another phenomenon
this way. The limits of hearing apply to everything, but what about
factors like the time between two sounds or the length of the sounds?
-- 
Regards,
Philipp

--
"Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan