4 ms·
To piggyback on the sibling comments: If you only determined direction based on relative volume between your ears, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between
by vitus 5y ago
To piggyback on the sibling comments:
If you only determined direction based on relative volume between your ears, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between sounds in front vs behind you.
- smcl 5y agoYep that's why I added "muffled" (i.e. not 100% clear). Maybe it's worth clarifying that I wasn't trying to correct the commenter, just adding my original (naive? wrong?) belief about how this worked :)
- Ensorceled 5y agoSince you sound sincere here ... I read your comment as disagreeing with and correcting the original comment.
- smcl 5y agoOops, it wasn't intended! I think maybe the "but" in my comment makes it sound that way?
- Cederfjard 5y agoYeah, to me it reads ”that’s a nice theory you have, but now I’ll tell you mine, which I think is the correct one”.
- smcl 5y agoI just liked how they related the speed of sound to the distance between ears to explain the (possibly less than) ~0.5ms thing, and how it was nicer than the naive explanation I had previously assumed
- ryandvm 5y agoYou also wouldn't be able to do the cocktail party trick. Your brain's ability to ignore everything that isn't of the desired ITD phase shift is what allows you to selectively ignore most of the noise in the room and focus on a single conversation.