when people talk in a low voice, i don’t notice it. but when they whisper it sounds harsh and noticeable.
In: Biology
Human hearing is non linear, meaning we don’t hear all frequencies at the same level. In fact, for humans to hear low frequencies at the same level as higher frequencies it requires much more amplitude. So why is this important? Human hearing is most sensitive at around 3000 Hz or 3 kHz. Unsurprisingly, you may also notice that grass or leaves rustling in a breeze are quite easy to hear, those sounds are in that general range. It’s a natural adaptation to the world around us. So whispers are also in this range, really anything that has an s or t sound. Those who are beginning to lose their hearing are actually losing those higher frequencies, basically it starts to sound like someone is talking to you through a blanket, muffling all of the detail you would get in those higher frequencies.
Fun fact, when bell laboratories were designing the telephone, due to bandwidth issues they couldn’t replicate all frequencies through a telephone line. So they sought out to find the range at which humans can hear a conversation with the least bandwidth. They discovered what is known as the Fletcher Munson curve. Again, the telephone for decades was centered around that same frequency. Generally, on older phone lines what you are hearing is a range from around 700 Hz to 5 kHz.
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