The human auditory system is communication acoustics’ hardest link to model

Evidence

The most central topic of this book is related to auditory perception. Every communication channel consists of a source, a channel, and a receiver. In our case the ultimate receiver is the human auditory system. This is found to be the most challenging link by far in the communication chain. Transmission channels and many sound sources can be formulated by physical and technical models more easily. Human speech or music as sound sources are also quite involved, since a full understanding of these phenomena requires including cognitive aspects too. The receiver, especially the human auditory system, is complex and intricate, even starting from the peripheral parts. Due to this complexity, the auditory aspects in communication by sound and voice have often been omitted or greatly simplified, especially in engineering-oriented textbooks. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 120

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to prior reading on soundscape and silence work, which likewise privileges the listener/perceiver over physical signal.