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Fatal Flaws in Norwich’s “Mystery of Loudness Adaptation”

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Transactions on Engineering Technologies (WCECS 2015)

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Abstract

Sixty-years-worth of publications show that there is no loudness change of a tone given to only one ear. But when, additionally, a same-frequency tone is presented intermittently to the other ear (“Simultaneous Dichotic Loudness Balance”), its amplitude must be progressively lowered in order to have equal loudnesses at the two ears. Why? Professor K.H. Norwich calls this the “mystery of loudness adaptation”, and claims to solve it (Bull Math Biol 2010), through “mathematical exploration” of monaural (single-ear) tone presentation versus binaural (two-ears) tone presentation. Norwich’s model is carefully scrutinized here. It proves to be riddled with arbitrary claims, contradictions, and incongruities. There is an alternative, a model by Nizami which explains ten known idiosyncracies of Simultaneous Dichotic Loudness Balance.

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Acknowledgements

My thanks to Claire S. Barnes PhD for her valuable insights.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Research Scholar, Palo Alto, CA, 94306, USA

    Lance Nizami

Authors
  1. Lance Nizami
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Correspondence to Lance Nizami .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IAENG Secretariat, International Association of Engineers, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Sio-Iong Ao

  2. Department of Computer and Communication, Engineering College, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu, Korea (Republic of)

    Haeng Kon Kim

  3. Provost and Senior Vice-President, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    Mahyar A. Amouzegar

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© 2017 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Nizami, L. (2017). Fatal Flaws in Norwich’s “Mystery of Loudness Adaptation”. In: Ao, SI., Kim, H., Amouzegar, M. (eds) Transactions on Engineering Technologies. WCECS 2015. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2717-8_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2717-8_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2716-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2717-8

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