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The human ear is not equally sensitive to all frequencies in the audible range. It may perceive sound waves with the same pressure but different frequencies as having different loudness. Moreover, the perception of sound waves depends on the health of an individual's ears, which decays with age. The health of one's ears may also be affected by regular exposure to loud noises.
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Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
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A SMARC Effect for Loudness.

Elena Bruzzi1, Francesca Talamini1, Konstantinos Priftis1

  • 1Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.

I-Perception
|December 5, 2017
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study explored the spatial representation of sound loudness. Participants responded faster when associating louder sounds with an upper key and quieter sounds with a lower key, suggesting loudness has a mental spatial mapping.

Keywords:
SMARC effectauditioncognitionmusicsmarc effectspatial selection/modulation

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Auditory perception
  • Spatial cognition

Background:

  • Pitch height is often mapped onto a mental spatial representation.
  • Western languages frequently use spatial metaphors for loudness (e.g., "high" for loud, "low" for quiet).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if sound loudness, similar to pitch, is spatially represented in the mind.
  • To determine if a consistent spatial mapping exists for loudness magnitude.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed a loudness discrimination task.
  • Responses were made using two keys: one positioned at the top and one at the bottom of a response box.
  • Reaction times were measured for different key-loudness associations.

Main Results:

  • Participants exhibited faster reaction times when associating louder sounds with the top key and quieter sounds with the bottom key.
  • The reverse association (louder-bottom, quieter-top) resulted in slower reaction times.
  • This indicates a preferential, faster mapping between loudness and vertical space.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the hypothesis that loudness is spatially represented in human cognition.
  • This spatial representation aligns with other magnitude-based information, such as pitch.
  • Loudness may be mentally mapped along a vertical axis, with higher positions corresponding to greater loudness.