%0 Journal Article
%T Psychophysiology and psychoacoustics of music: Perception of complex sound in normal subjects and psychiatric patients
%A Stefanos A Iakovides
%A Vassiliki TH Iliadou
%A Vassiliki TH Bizeli
%A Stergios G Kaprinis
%A Konstantinos N Fountoulakis
%A George S Kaprinis
%J Annals of General Psychiatry
%D 2004
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1475-2832-3-6
%X Music being a complex sound contributes to communication and conveys information with semantic and emotional elements. These elements indicate the involvement of the central nervous system through processes of integration and interpretation together with peripheral auditory processing.Effects of sound and music in human psychology and physiology are complicated. Psychological influences of listening to different types of music are based on the different characteristics of basic musical sounds. Attempting to explain music perception can be simpler if music is broken down to its basic auditory signals. Perception of auditory signals is analyzed by the science of psychoacoustics. Differences in complex sound perception have been found between normal subjects and psychiatric patients and between different types of psychopathologies.Perception of complex sound is a process carried out in everyday life situations and contributes in the way one perceives reality. Both nature sounds and sounds in most everyday situations are complex sounds composed of basic sounds. Basic sounds are most often produced and heard in laboratory situations. Attempting to explain sound perception is complicated. Sound has a physical and a psychological component. Physics of sound has its origin in the pressure changes as a result of the vibration of an object. Such changes are perceived by the human outer ear, propagated and amplified through the ossicles of the middle ear and the area difference between the tympanic membrane and the oval window. Psychology of sound is based on the perception of its characteristics. It starts in the motion of the basilar membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear and proceeds to the cochlear nuclei and to the central auditory pathway to reach both hemispheres of the human brain.Physics of simple sound can be described as a function of frequency, amplitude and phase. Complex sounds according to Fourier analysis can be broken down into a series of simple sounds. The
%U http://www.annals-general-psychiatry.com/content/3/1/6