Psychoacoustic findings often lack known anatomical or physical mechanisms

Evidence

It should be noted that many of the psychoacoustic effects have been observed experimentally, mainly as a result of playing sounds that are carefully controlled in terms of their acoustic nature to panels of listeners from whom responses are monitored. These responses are often the result of comparing two sounds and indicating, for example, which is louder or higher in pitch or “brighter.” Many of the results from such experiments cannot as yet be described in terms of either where anatomically or by what physical means they occur. Psychoacoustics is a developing field of research. However, the results from such experiments give a firm foundation for understanding the nature of human perception of musical sounds, and knowledge of minimum changes that are perceived provide useful guideline bounds for those exploring the subtleties of sound synthesis. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 513

It should be noted that many of the psychoacoustic effects have been observed experimentally, mainly as a result of playing sounds that are carefully controlled in terms of their acoustic nature to panels of listeners from whom responses are monitored. These responses are often the result of comparing two sounds and indicating, for example, which is louder or higher in pitch or “brighter.” Many of the results from such experiments cannot as yet be described in terms of either where anatomically or by what physical means they occur. Psychoacoustics is a developing field of research. However, the results from such experiments give a firm foundation for understanding the nature of human perception of musical sounds, and knowledge of minimum changes that are perceived provide useful guideline bounds for those exploring the subtleties of sound synthesis. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 513

Categorization

• QUESTION: Which specific psychoacoustic effects are still unexplained anatomically? Worth chasing.
• XREF: Parallels the ‘measurement precedes theory’ gap familiar from other empiricist sciences. — connects to: Even everyday sounds like crinkling and creaking lack full mechanical explanations; Psychoacoustics developed in parallel, not from, physiology and was shaped by communication engineering; Quadraphonic audio failed partly from lacking a psychoacoustic foundation. (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies what psychoacoustics is — an experimental science of comparison judgments whose mechanisms are largely unmapped — which fits the reader’s goal of understanding the discipline’s methods.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 513

Broader Connections

• Psychoacoustic tuning curves directly reflect cochlear mechanical processing. #complicates (0.85) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 223