The Doppler effect in the perception of sound

Abstract

We consider the Doppler effect for sound in connection with the development of nanotechnology. It was explained within the mechanics of continuous media. Recently, in the virtual reality-based experimental environment, it is deemed an auditory cue for motion, emphasizing its physiological meaning. Yet, in physiology the unifying item auditory kinematics is at stake ever since 1825, when the functions of the auditory and vestibular systems were told apart. Although in 1935 Bekesy showed that loud sounds and clicks evoke myogenic responses, it is quite a leap to decide that Doppler pitch shifts are being heard by the vestibular system. Thus, usually, neither pitch shifts nor vestibular organs are seriously taken into account in connection with the cochlear implants. A reason to take a closer look at pitch shifts is that prosody fulfills a primary function in speech. Our preliminary investigations indicate that the Doppler effect cannot be wholly accounted for by relative velocity, being it not perceived homogeneously across the auditory frequency range. At this stage, it seems worth distinguishing between perception of pitch and perception of pitch-shift also in the design of bionic hearing devices. If the Doppler effect is nonhomogeneous, but the saccule passably senses sounds, cochlear implants might receive a feed back by the signal coming from it.We consider the Doppler effect for sound in connection with the development of nanotechnology. It was explained within the mechanics of continuous media. Recently, in the virtual reality-based experimental environment, it is deemed an auditory cue for motion, emphasizing its physiological meaning. Yet, in physiology the unifying item auditory kinematics is at stake ever since 1825, when the functions of the auditory and vestibular systems were told apart. Although in 1935 Bekesy showed that loud sounds and clicks evoke myogenic responses, it is quite a leap to decide that Doppler pitch shifts are being heard by the vestibular system. Thus, usually, neither pitch shifts nor vestibular organs are seriously taken into account in connection with the cochlear implants. A reason to take a closer look at pitch shifts is that prosody fulfills a primary function in speech. Our preliminary investigations indicate that the Doppler effect cannot be wholly accounted for by relative velocity, being it not perceived hom...