I understand how sound is generated by pressure waves vibrating the eardrum. And this makes perfect sense to me when a single sound is generating that vibration. But when multiple sounds are vibrating the eardrum at the same time (like when listening to music with different instruments and vocals) how does the brain tease those differing vibrations apart so we can hear the individual inputs…as opposed to them mixing all together into one sound; The equivalent of mixing a bunch of different paint colors together and ending up with brown.
In: Biology
The same way your brain draws boundaries between the individual objects in a pile of objects sitting on a tables. The details of the process are incredibly complicated. So complicated, in fact, that our best computers running our best algorithms can’t do it nearly as well. Basically, our brains evolved to be good at pattern recognition, including patterns in sound.
Latest Answers