The Psychology of Listening

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 26, 9 January 1931, Page 6

The Psychology of Listening

Mental Fatigue [HE term "colour blindness" is a familiar one. The term "tone blindness" is not so familiar And yet the human ear, like the eye, has its distinct limitations. The noise of city life has compelled us to be less sensitive to sounds for the sake of our nerves. We must igno most of the noise in order to be comfortable, and this is impairing the function of hearing, we are told by psychologists and physicians. Then also, the ear has its limitations of responsiveness to pitch. Persons with unusually keen ears can hear tones as high pitched as 10,000 cycles, while others can hardly

perceive tones higher than 5000 cycles. Such limitations of the hearing faculty made radio reception a matter of psychology as well as of acoustics. The early types of reproducers or loudspeakers were not acoustically capable of accurately reproducing low notes. When such a note was played in the broadcasting studio, it was reproduced not as a tone of the same frequency but as a harmonic of this tone. Such tones sound "tinny" and the listener becomes mentally fatigued without knowing the exact reason why. His mind unconsciously "manufactures" from the harmonic the fundamental tone it represents. Since the lower notes are not received, the music is high pitched, and prolonged listening to it is tiresome, although here again the listener may not be conscious of the reason. .