![]() Binaural recording is another example of spatial manipulation, reproducing interaural features and anatomical influences of the head and ear. Holophones can be created in a number of ways including wave field synthesis as I’ve mentioned. We frequently manipulate spatialization to make it seem as though sounds are coming from a particular source or direction other than the loudspeaker producing the sound. Spatial illusions are already a mainstay of theatrical sound design. More auditory illusions continue to be uncovered and understood, so these categories aren’t rigid. There are a number of types of illusions that can be roughly categorized as spatial illusions, perpetual motion, and non-linear perceptual effects. In the arts, psychoacoustics and auditory illusions have been applied in musical contexts, sound art, film, and theater, though these applications are fairly nascent. Psychoacoustic research has been applied in myriad contexts including modeling compression codecs like mp3s, software development, audio system design, drone flying, car manufacturing, and even, terrifyingly, in acoustic weapon development. Due largely to her research, there has been increasing understanding of the cognitive factors in the auditory system and how it has evolved over time to help us interpret our sonic environments effectively. If you want to hear examples and read her work, visit her website here. Diana Deutsch, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego is at the forefront of psychoacoustic research and her work has utilized countless auditory illusions and sonic paradoxes. ![]() In artistic applications, auditory illusions provide similar insight into our perceptional processes and illustrate that there is no one true sonic reality.ĭr. Auditory illusions provide key information in unpacking our auditory processes for psychologists and neurologists. Researches have even found that how we unconsciously interpret sounds is influenced by our individual environments, backgrounds, and dialects. Hearing is not strictly mechanical but involves significant neural processing and is influenced by our anatomy, physiology, and cognition. The field of psychoacoustics examines how the brain processes sound, music, and speech. The history of auditory illusions and their use in psychology, music, sound design, and elsewhere is much shorter.Īuditory illusions, much like visual illusions, reveal the deficiencies and oddities of our perceptual processes, but the auditory and visual systems have their own unique attributes. Due to the historical ease of reproducing and distributing visual material, as opposed to auditory material, visual illusions have long been widely encountered, studied, and applied in artistic works. In psychology and neurology, the study of optical illusions has played a large role in understanding the visual perception apparatus. Esher’s work, for instance, presents the viewer with impossible objects and perceptual confusions. Optical illusions have long been the inspiration for and integrated into visual arts. Auditory illusions, however, encapsulate many effects extending far beyond this. ![]() Now, quite a bit of theatrical sound design could be considered spatial illusions like, for example, when we recreate actual physical phenomena like the doppler effect. Since then, I’ve been filling in the gaps and adding these illusions to my sonic toolbox. This introduction to wave field synthesis, in addition to being quite exciting, pointed me towards a categorical lack of knowledge about auditory illusions. Its application in theatrical contexts is very new, but as the techniques and technology slowly become more widely available, the potential for theatrical applications is astounding. ![]() The effect is that sounds appear to be coming from a virtual source and a listener’s perception of the source remains the same regardless of their position in the room. Wave field synthesis, if you are unfamiliar with it as I was, is a spatial auditory illusion and rendering technique that produces a holophone, or auditory hologram, using many individually driven loudspeakers. So, if a tree falls in the woods, perhaps it makes infinite soundsĪ few years ago, I attended a talk on wave field synthesis, and to say I was captivated feels like a sorry understatement.
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