Here’s another: the human ear is phenomenal at determining where in 3d space a sound is coming from. Most animals can only determine direction and can’t really place a sound vertically. Watch what your cat or dog does when they’re looking for the source of a noise, it takes them a lot longer.
iirc it’s because human ears are slightly offset to each other vertically. The brain then calculates the time difference it takes each ear to hear it. Basically triangulation.
I’ve never liked this explanation because if that was all there was to it, it would still only localize to a slanted line in front of us.
Say for example the right ear is higher (I tried finding which one normally is, but couldn’t find a good answer) in this case it would not be feasible without other clues to tell the difference between a sound being higher up and slightly to the left, or lower and slightly to the right. It’s not a significantly different situation from the ears being the same height.
In reality there are other clues, largely based on the shape of our ears slightly changing the sound in learned ways based on the angle it comes from.
Here’s another: the human ear is phenomenal at determining where in 3d space a sound is coming from. Most animals can only determine direction and can’t really place a sound vertically. Watch what your cat or dog does when they’re looking for the source of a noise, it takes them a lot longer.
the human *ears. we need both ears working together to determine the source of a sound.
teamwork makes the dream work, people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization
If someone wants to read an interesting (but complex) explanation of how it works
iirc it’s because human ears are slightly offset to each other vertically. The brain then calculates the time difference it takes each ear to hear it. Basically triangulation.
Triangulation is 2 dimensional, the 3 dimensional equivalent would be “tetrahedralization”.
I’ve never liked this explanation because if that was all there was to it, it would still only localize to a slanted line in front of us.
Say for example the right ear is higher (I tried finding which one normally is, but couldn’t find a good answer) in this case it would not be feasible without other clues to tell the difference between a sound being higher up and slightly to the left, or lower and slightly to the right. It’s not a significantly different situation from the ears being the same height.
In reality there are other clues, largely based on the shape of our ears slightly changing the sound in learned ways based on the angle it comes from.
Wait what?
One blindspot is that the ear is not good at determining whether the sound comes directly in front or back of the head.