The Resonance Theory of Audition

Abstract

THE resonance theory of audition continues to excite considerable interest and must be regarded as being still in the controversial stage. The very name is somewhat unfortunate and may have led some into the mistaken view that some sympathetic vibrators in the ear are postulated as capable of actual resonance or resounding like a tuning-fork set in audible vibration by another which was first sounded. Of course it should be understood, on the resonance theory, that the vibrator in question merely vibrates when a sound of nearly its own proper pitch is received by the ear, such vibration, though effecting audition by its possessor, being quite inaudible to others. Some through misunderstandings on this or other points have failed to grasp the essentials of the resonance theory of audition, and have in consequence ieory of Audition. levelled at it criticisms which clearer knowledge on their part would have obviated. No attempt will be made here to locate in the ear those mechanisms, if any, which play the part of sympathetic vibrators, responders, or resonators. That is left to the anatomists to discover. But we may note briefly the essentials of the resonance theory, the salient facts of audition and what power the theory has of meeting the demand which those facts make upon it. In the latter we may derive help from the consideration of a simple working model which any one may set up and experiment with for himself.