ABSTRACT
We dealt in the previous chapters predominantly with rather simple stimuli such as tones and bursts of noise. These stimuli are easy to make and well suited to studying timbre, pitch, and loudness, as well as the perceptual segregation of sequences of tones into multiple sound streams. However, the more or less steady-state sound pulses of the laboratory are quite different from what we hear in everyday life, where most sounds vary continuously in time, and usually simultaneously in all three attributes of timbre, pitch, and loudness. It would be a serious mistake to think that with only these aspects of perception we have grasped the essential properties of the hearing process. On the contrary, they constitute merely a necessary introduction to the discussion of the real achievements of the system. Only a discussion of the way in which dynamic sounds are perceived can reveal what hearing really is.
