SAKryukov

::::::::::::::::::::::: Hm... Fundamentally (pun unintended), there is no difference between "tones" and "overtones", that's the key. When a sound wave reaches our ears, the information on the way of its generation is already lost. And yet, we "perceive" the audible modes as such, and mentally associate them with some instrument/oscillator, but it happens only because we hear pretty much what we expect to hear — we basically know how a certain type of musical instrument should behave. This is not pure, but a conceptual perception. That said, if we produce some totally alien sound, without an attempt to model any known real-life mechanical objects, there won't be any mode perception. Or, perhaps, the frequencies can be sensed as the "modes" of a speaker device, which is pretty much the same — no modes, there is no implied object having the modes. If it sounds unlikely, here is one less idealized example: throat singing. When many people hear this singing for the very first time, they often cannot realize what's going on, and later cannot reproduce it. We find it difficult to reproduce not because of physical difficulties. No, we simply don't have a model of what's going on, don't see any analog in our previous experience. Likewise, I saw many people nearly incapable of pronouncing a very simple sound of a foreign language or a combination... This is all the mental model issue, no more no less. — [[User:SAKryukov|SA]], ''Monday 2020 December 7, 22:53 UTC''

::::::::::::::::::::: By the way, do you know about the nonlinear properties of our aural system? It was even used in historical organs. I mean, the phenomenon has nothing to do with brain processing. The sound is physically generated in the head out of the sound waves. It can generate a sound which does not physically present in the air, say, combination frequencies which cannot appear in any linear systems due to the superposition principle. — [[User:SAKryukov|SA]], ''Monday 2020 December 7, 20:35 UTC''