Hi Bill, Interesting. But I would argue that there is another, far more straightforward explanation: The auditory nervous system is highly nonlinear. Nonlinear responses arise both in the cochlea and in the central auditory system. In humans, auditory brainstem recordings show nonlinear population responses to combinations of pure tones, and to musical intervals composed of complex tones. In nonlinear systems, gain changes the nature of the response qualitatively. The stronger the input, the more nonlinear resonances (harmonics, subharmonics, combination tones and integer ratios) appear. According to this reasoning, louder music is not just more of the same thing … it is a qualitatively different experience. Louder music should literally lead to different patterns of resonance in the auditory system. Ed Edward Large Associate Professor of Complex Systems and Brain Sciences Florida Atlantic University www.ccs.fau.edu/~large tel: 561.297.0106 fax: 561.297.3634 On Sep 24, 2010, at 6:05 AM, Bill Thompson wrote:
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