Volume 1
A text-book of experimental psychology : with laboratory exercises / by Charles S. Myers.
- Charles Samuel Myers
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A text-book of experimental psychology : with laboratory exercises / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.
75/370 page 55
![suffering from binaural diplacusis (page 49) heard the tone d3 as f3. Consequently when the tones d2, d3 were sounded in succession before the affected ear, the subject judged the interval to be a minor tenth. Yet when these two tones were sounded simultaneously, he judged the interval to be an octave immediately on hearing them, and its consonance was not in the least disturbed when, on subsequent analysis, he determined that the tones he heard were d2 and f3. Let us, however, bear in mind that pure tones are a philo¬ sophical fiction. For every tone is accompanied by one or more overtones; and even when they are obliterated by in¬ terference, they may conceivably be re-formed within the ear before the end organ is reached. When we judge that a tone is pure, we do so because we are incapable of analys¬ ing the really complex pattern of vibration received at the cochlea: complex, because of the inevitable overtones which are simultaneously, be it ever so feebly, stimulating the appropriate end organs. Throughout our life, no tones are more closely associated with any given musical tone n> than one or more of its accompanying overtones 2n, 3n, 4n, 5;/, 6n, unanalysed though they be. And these are the very tones that form with one another the most consonant intervals. Thus harmony is seen to have a natural basis of association.] Criticism of Helmholtz's Theory of Hearing.—The diffi¬ culty of Helmholtz’s theory of hearing is mainly one of conception. The 24,000 basilar fibres range in length only from about 0^04 to 0‘49 mm. Nevertheless they are expected to vibrate to tones varying between 15 vibrations and over 20,000 vibrations per second. Compensation for such small differences in length of fibre is only possible by almost in¬ conceivably great differences in loading. In some animals, at least, this loading is precisely in the opposite direction to that required by theory, the fibres becoming thicker as they decrease in length. Again, it is hard to believe that the basilar fibres are free to vibrate along their entire length, carrying as they do the rods of Corti and a small vein beneath the tunnel. The pars pectinata appears to be the only freely](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3135984x_0001_0075.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
