Sound as physical event and sound as auditory perception are distinct

Evidence

The word sound in English has two confusingly different meanings. It may refer to the physical phenomenon or to the subjective percept. The old philosophical dilemma ponders, ‘If a tree in the forest falls down and there is no observer, does it make a sound?’ Based on experimental evidence and by making a clear distinction between these two meanings, we may say that a falling tree causes a physical sound event that can be recorded and analysed every time, but it does not make any sound in the sense of an auditory perception if there is no subject to hear the event. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 128

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core distinction between physical sound events and subjective auditory perceptions, the foundational disambiguation for the whole field.
• XREF: Connects to the soundscape studies theme — Schafer’s work also separates acoustic events from their perceptual significance. — connects to: Physical sound measurement cannot capture the subjective semantic meaning of a sonic environment — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 1159; Sonification converts data relations into perceived acoustic relations — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 2472