It’s tempting to draw a connection between the ~3 kHz resonance of the voice and the ~3 kHz resonance of the ear canal. There are two reasons why I am reluctant to think too much of this coincidence:
First, if we take the evolutionary point of view, I would guess that we should be more interested in the screams of *babies* than adults. And given the smaller size of babies’ vocal tracts, I would no longer expect their peak resonance to align with that of our ear canal.
Second, while the ear canal peak is prominent (enough that we audiologists need to compensate for it while fitting any hearing aid that occludes the canal), our system is chronically calibrated to it. Yes, there is a resonance, but the resonance is there to amplify that 2-5 kHz region for *all* sounds, so all broadband sounds should be equally affected. It is much more elegant in my opinion to frame perception as perception of *change* rather than perception of static spectral peaks; obviously this is not my own original idea. One of the more impressive experimenters in this line of work in the auditory sciences is Christian Stilp, whose work is described here: https://louisville.edu/psychology/stilp/lab/research
Given these thoughts, I am more likely to marvel at the pleasant coincidence of resonance frequencies, but with a healthy dose of “aw shucks” rather than a press release or quest to support a particular narrative.
Matt
Dear collective wisdom,
I recall reading somewhere (long ago) that most human screams exhibit a spectral peak in the 3 kHz region (more broadly, 2-5 kHz) coinciding with the threshold dip due to the ear canal resonance. The implication is that screams are co-adapted to the most sensitive region of human hearing.
Can anyone point me to a suitable reference? Even literature reporting power spectrum data for human screams would be useful.
David Huron