The hypersonic effect is a phenomenon reported in a controversial study by the Japanese researcher Tsutomu Oohashi and colleagues, which claims that although people cannot consciously hear ultrasound, meaning sound above roughly 20 kilohertz, the presence or absence of those inaudible frequencies still produces a measurable effect on a listener's physiological and psychological responses. A number of later studies have contradicted the part of the claim concerning subjective reaction to high frequency audio, finding that listeners with especially sensitive hearing, using high fidelity equipment capable of reproducing sound up to 30 kilohertz, could not reliably tell the difference between high resolution audio recordings and ordinary compact disc quality audio.
Facts
Core Claimthe presence or absence of those frequencies has a measurable effect on their physiological and psychological reactions 1 First Described Year Replication Standing Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Hypersonic effect - Wikipedia
Sources
1. Hypersonic effect - Wikipedia
Intro, sentence 1
the presence or absence of those frequencies has a measurable effect on their physiological and psychological reactions
Study section
In research published in 2000 in the Journal of Neurophysiology
Article text
Researches from NHK laboratory have attempted carefully but unsuccessfully to reproduce Oohashi's results. 480 man-hours of listening tests conducted at the London AES convention in 1980 by Laurie Finchman of KEF concluded that subjects could not distinguish a 20 kHz band-limited version of a test signal from the original played back on equipment capable of reproducing sound up to 40 kHz.
In Branch: Psychophysics, Lead sentence
The hypersonic effect is a phenomenon reported in a controversial scientific study by Tsutomu Oohashi et al., which claims that, although humans cannot consciously hear ultrasound (sounds at frequencies above approximately 20 kHz), the presence or absence of those frequencies has a measurable effect on their physiological and psychological reactions.
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