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The sound of two hands clapping: an exploratory study.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|April 1, 1987
Summary
This study reveals that the unique sound of a clap, analyzed acoustically, can indicate the specific hand shape used. Listeners can accurately identify hand configurations by hearing individual claps.
Area of Science:
- Acoustic phonetics
- Human auditory perception
- Biomechanics of sound production
Background:
- Clapping is a common human behavior, often overlooked in scientific study.
- It can be considered both a communicative act (applause) and an individual sound-generating activity.
- The hands act as the primary articulators in clap sound production.
Purpose of the Study:
- To acoustically analyze individual clapping sounds.
- To investigate the relationship between clap acoustics and hand configuration.
- To determine if listeners can perceive hand configuration from clap sounds.
Main Methods:
- Acoustical analysis of clap sounds from 20 subjects.
- Principal components analysis (PCA) of clap spectra to identify variations.
- Perceptual experiments to test listeners' ability to discern hand configurations.
Main Results:
- PCA revealed distinct dimensions of interindividual variation in clap spectra.
- These variations correlated significantly with observed hand configurations.
- A single clapper's varied productions showed clearer relationships between acoustics and hand shape.
- Listeners demonstrated high accuracy in judging hand configuration based on sound alone.
Conclusions:
- Clap acoustics provide reliable information about the physical mechanism of sound production (hand configuration).
- Auditory perception of claps is sensitive to spectral properties related to the source.
- This supports the hypothesis that sounds from natural sources convey information about the source's state.