psychology articles binaural hearing in everyday life

Our guest author this month at 20Q is Jennifer Lentz, PhD.ĭr. To tell us more about this relationship, it seems only fitting to bring in someone who has recently written a book on the topic. This is something that applies to much of what we do in clinical audiology and the fitting of hearing aids-probably to a greater extent than we realize. Simply stated, Fechner’s discovery relates to the relationship between the actual change in a physical stimulus and the perceived change by humans. These ideas resulted in work that he later published. Because of this morning discovery, he is known as the founder of psychophysics. as the story goes, on a Tuesday morning, October 22, 1850, he awoke with new revolutionary ideas about the non-linear relationship between psychological sensation and the physical intensity of a stimulus. He suffered from depression, was suicidal and spent most of his time in bed. Living on a small pension, he soon became reclusive and rarely left his home. When he was only in his 40s, he developed very poor vision and poor overall heath, and as a result, lost his job at the university.

Gus Fechner (1801-1887), was a German philosopher, physicist, and experimental psychologist. Over the years, there haven’t been too many “Gus’s” in the fields of audiology or hearing science, so as you might expect, we tend to stick together. It’s only natural, therefore, that whenever I think of psychoacoustics, the first name to come to mind is Gus Fechner. And it’s not just me. Each year, on October 22 nd, Fechner Day is celebrated with psychophysics conferences at many sites in the U.S.

Psychology articles binaural hearing in everyday life