Hearing adapts to focus on the audible 20-30 dB of decay

Evidence

The ability to do this is most probably a result of neural processes within the hearing system. For example, a study by Summerfield et al. (1984) shows that exposure for just 1 second to a sound can result in spectral adaptation, possibly via neural adaptation in the auditory periphery. Summerfield et al. (1984) played a sequence of sounds to the listener the first of which consisted of a harmonic complex containing the first 50 harmonics of a tone, with a number of those 50 harmonics reduced in amplitude. The complex was then heard again but with the harmonics which had previously been reduced in level increased to the level of the remaining harmonics. When listening to the second sound, the components that had changed in level were heard to stand out perceptually from the rest of the tone. This enhancement effect appears to demonstrate the auditory system’s heightened sensitivity to temporal changes in spectrum and may show a mechanism which helps listeners to perceive differences in magnitude spectra between different sounds, as well as a system that can remove spectral distortion. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1252 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hearing spans a pressure range greater than a million to one — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 886; One second of exposure triggers neural spectral adaptation in hearing — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1252

Broader Connections

• One second of exposure triggers neural spectral adaptation in hearing #expands (0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1252