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Accredited Standards Committee S1, Acoustics. (2013). Acoustic terminology: ANSI/ASA S1.1-2013. (ANSI) Melville, NY: Acoustical Society of America.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 08/06/2023, 10:02
Sound is: "(a) Oscillation in pressure, stress, particle displacement, particle velocity etc., propagated in a medium with internal forces (e.g., elastic or viscous) or the superposition of such propagated oscillation" or the "(b) Auditory sensation evoked by the oscillation described in (a)."

The definition has the following footnote: "Not all sounds evoke an auditory sensation, e.g., ultrasound or infrasound. Not all auditory sensations are evoked by sound, e.g., tinnitus."

Casati, R., Dokic, J., & Di Bona, E. (2005-2020). Sounds. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved October 27, 2021, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sounds/.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/02/2024, 10:09
"the various philosophical pronouncements about the nature of sounds can be rather neatly classified according to the spatial status each of them assigns to sounds. Where are sounds? Are they anywhere? The main relevant families of answers include proximal, medial, distal, and aspatial theories."
Proximal theory of sound/sound as sensation: "If sounds are simply defined as the objects of audition, then they are easily identified with the qualitative aspects of auditory perception. Various strands of indirect realism in perception would make this view mandatory. According to them, it is by hearing the immediate, proximal items that we hear some distal events or objects."

In rejecting the idea that sounds are proximal stimuli (cf. (O'Shaughnessy 2009)), a number of arguments are used including:

  • if sound is at the hearer's position then the number of sounds = the number of listeners
  • Failing this, then a single sound can exist in multiple locations

Also rejected is that, while the fact that the sound of something distant sounds different if one were close up (an argument for sound as proximal stimuli), that we have no notion of distal volume or loudness of a sound—we do. A motorcycle at a distance can still be judged to be loud.

The fault, apparently, is that the proximal stimulus theory does not "distinguish between source and informational channel." Thus, the information derived from a sound wave includes not only information about the original sound wave but also filtering in the medium, reflections, absorption, echoes and so on.

Another fault is that our everyday experience locates sound where the sound wave source is.



O'Shaughnessy, B. (2009). The location of a perceived sound. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 111–125). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
In dicussing medial theories, early proponents (or at least forebearers) of the wave view of sound are noted including Aristotle, Galileo, and Descartes who all stated that sound is a movement in air. Thus modern acoustics and the standard definition of sound as a sound wave.

Arguments against the medial/wave view include:

  • the existence of infrasound and ultrasound (the same physical nature as other sound waves but not sensed)
  • a sound wave does not necessarily depend on the physical property of the sounding object (cf loudspeakers)
  • as with proximal theories, medial theories do not locate sounds where our everyday experience would locate them (at the source and so at a distance and unmoving)
  • if sounds were sound waves where then is the information contained in them that informs about the sound source, its distance, the sound's loudness, and so on—everything that we experience in everyday perception of sound?
Within distal theories of sound, there are four main concepts:
  • Sound is a property. Like colours, smells, and shapes, sounds are secondary qualities being sensory qualities. One might object that an object does not have a sound—unlike the object that has a smell, colour, or shape—rather the object produces a sound. Another objection is that sounds are dynamic and "intrinsically temporal entities" and, unlike colours and shapes, are individuals.
  • Sound is a located event. Sounds are events that happen to material objects. They are located at the material source and can be identified with, or at least supervene on, the vibrations of that object. A medium is required to transmit the sound to a listener but is not required for the sound' existence—a tuning fork in a vacuum still produces a sound; it simply cannot be transmitted to us. In this theory, sound is also an "intrinsically temporal entity." Nevertheless, sounds can also be mislocated, as with echoes, and the Doppler effect might suggest that sound is in fact medial. However, a proponent of this distal theory would simply argue that it is the medium that affects our perception of pitch change—to anyone remaining with the sound source, the sound does not change. Other objections are typically countered by the charge that the objector confuses sound with a sound wave.
  • Sound is a relational event. Sounds are events involving both source and medium. Developed from Aristotle's statement "everything that makes a sound does so by the impact of something against something else, across a space filled with air" (De Anima II.8 420b15). This is usually taken as an argument for the medial view of sound as a sound wave but has been interpreted by O'Callaghan to mean that sound waves are not the sounds themselves but the effects of the sounds. Thus, the medium is required for sound and so sound does not exist in a vacuum.
  • Sound is the disposition of an object to vibrate upon being stimulated. In this way it is like colour which might be explained as the disposition of an object to reflect white light in a particular way. Without vibration, objects may well have sounds but they cannot be heard. Hitting, or 'thwacking,' an object is aking to shining white light upon an object—it reveals the sound as the light reveals the colour. An objection might be that, in fact, there are many dispositions to vibrating/sounding when thwacked as illustrated byt the different vibratory characteristics of an amplitude envelope. Equally, there are many types of thwackers that can be used, each eliciting a different vibration and sound. What also of the sound that lasts once the vibrational disposition has ceased? We also hear sounds as unfolding over time which is more process and event than disposition.
Erlmann, V. (2000). Reason and resonance: A history of modern aurality. New York: Zone Books.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 15/02/2024, 08:01
Plato and the atomists thought that sound was a stream of air particles or even "special atoms" issuing from the source.
Evans, G. (1985). Collected papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 10/01/2024, 06:50
"The connection between space and objectivity lies so deep in our conceptual scheme that many philosophers pass from 'objective' to 'outer' without even noticing the question they beg. The subjective being regarded as what is 'in the mind', the objective becomes what is 'without the mind, and then it is easy to say with Hobbes that if we have a conception of a thing without the mind, we have a conception of space."
Glennie, E. (1993). Hearing essay. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from https://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing-essay/   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 15/01/2023, 16:11
"Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch."
Hammershøi, D. September 2, 2015. The ANSI definition of sound. [Email]   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 07/12/2015, 08:11
I have made the response a private comment . . .
Howard, D. M., & Angus, J. (1996). Acoustics and psychoacoustics. Oxford: Focal Press.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 10/02/2014, 08:47
"At a physical level sound is simply a mechanical disturbance of the medium, which may be air, or a solid, liquid or other gas. However, such a simplistic description is not very useful as it provides no information about the way this disturbance travels, or any of its characteristics other than the requirement for a medium in order for it to propagate. What is required is a more accurate description which can be used to make predictions of the behaviour of sound in a variety of contexts."
LaBelle, B. (2006). Background noise: Perspectives on sound art. New York: Continuum.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 09/03/2014, 12:13
"sound is always in more than one place. If I make a sound, such as clapping my hands, we hear this sound here, between my palms at the moment of clapping, but also within the room, tucked up into the corners, and immediately reverberating back, to return to the source of the sound."
Locke, J. (1690). An essay concerning human understanding. 2nd ed.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/05/2021, 13:58
"How often may a man observe in himself, that whilst his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of some objects, and curiously surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that uses to be for the producing the idea of sound? A sufficient impulse there may be on the organ; but it not reaching the observation of the mind, there follows no perception: and though the motion that uses to produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of sensation, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ, or that the man’s ears are less affected than at other times when he does hear: but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation."
Lunn, P., & Hunt, A. 2013, July 6–10, Phantom signals: Erroneous perception observed during the audification of radio astronomy data. Paper presented at International Conference on Auditory Display, Łódź, Poland.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/11/2013, 13:11
The greatest reporting of phantom signals was when no example signals were played beforehand. The authors thus claim that phantom signals are a form of pareidolia (bring order out of chaos, seeing faces in clouds etc.).
Nicod, J. (1970). Geometry and induction. J. Bell & M. Woods, Trans. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1930).   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 24/01/2024, 10:20
"Let us [. . .] rediscover geometry in the book of nature [. . .] experience rests not on space, but on bodies, or more generally on the sensible. However, geometry insinuates itself into the expression of any experience through the situations of the objects and observers, which are part of the circumstances of any sensible fact."
Nudds, M. (2009). Sounds and space. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 69–96). Oxford: Oxford University Press.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 01/02/2014, 12:09
"sounds are patterns or structures of frequency components instantiated by sound waves"
O'Callaghan, C. (2009). Sounds and events. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 26–49). Oxford: Oxford University Press.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 27/01/2018, 14:51
"[T]here is the event of an object or substance setting a medium into periodic motion. This is sound."
Pouliot, D. (2014). Hearing without ears (auditory brainstem implant). Retrieved August 19, 2015, from https://web.archive.org ... tory-brainstem-implant/   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 10/02/2020, 07:57
"The implant is placed in the wall of the lateral recess of the fourth ventricle in the area where the axons (nerve fibres) and cochlear nucleus (synapses)—which transport sounds picked up by the ear to the cerebral cortex—are found."
Revill, G. (2016). How is space made in sound? Spatial mediation, critical phenomenology and the political agency of sound. Progress in Human Geography, 40(2), 240–256.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 07/01/2017, 16:12

"Starting from Carpenter and McLuhan’s premise, we need to seek the ‘thinginess’ of sound as co-produced by the act or processes of making, the materials which carry and transmit, and the means of receiving, sensing and making sense. Sound is made within the contingent interplay of each of these realms simultaneously."

Riddoch, M. 2012, September 9–14, On the non-cochlearity of the sounds themselves. Paper presented at International Computer Music Conference, Ljubljana.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 23/09/2020, 21:36
Riddoch provides a fourth definition of sounds "as first and foremost meaningful, worldly phenomena."
"The fact that the sounds we hearken to are already meaningful would indicate that the conceptual in sound is not merely an afterthought, an artistic abstraction, or a subjective, psychological construction. The meaningfulness of what we hear is a fundamental aspect of the sounds themselves as we encounter them in the first instance."
"I would like to propose that there is therefore no such thing as a cochlear sound in any demonstrable empirical sense, there are only in the first instance the sounds themselves we hear and hearken to. By simple inference all sound, as something heard in the world, is therefore non-cochlear (or more precisely a nonphysical phenomenon)."

Riddoch proposes three types of non-cochlear sound:

  • Synaesthetic -- the perception of sound via stimulation of another sense.
  • Infrasonic sound -- sound waves below 20Hz can be detected by the skin and the chest cavity resonates at 80Hz and below. Riddoch also points to the example of profoundly deaf (from birth) percussionist Evelyn Glennie who maintains that hearing is a specialized form of touch (Glennie 1993).
  • Auditory imagination -- including memory, imagination, hallucination, dreaming which all excite the auditory cortex.



Glennie, E. (1993). Hearing essay. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from https://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing-essay/
Santarcangelo, V., & Terrone, E. (2015). Sounds and other denizens of time. The Monist, 98(2), 168–180.   
Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 09/01/2024, 13:21
"A purely temporal individual entity is such that we can establish when but not where it is. One can think of these individuals (for example, a sound) as having only temporal parts and temporal features in spite of their being dependent on more basic entities that have also spatial features (such as a body emitting the sound). But could such individuals exist entirely independently of any commitment to space? Strawson explores a positive answer to this question in chapter II of his Individuals, by means of a thought experiment concerning what he calls a No-Space world. In the first instance, this experiment aims at putting pressure on the Kantian thesis that space is a necessary condition for any “objective” experience, by which he means any experience of individual entities as existing independently of their being experienced. Strawson, however, adopts the Aristotelian view according to which our most basic schemes and categories provide us with crucial clues as to the basic structures of reality, and thus he conceives space and time as structures of reality and not just as forms of experience. Given our experience of the world, the world must be such that it makes this kind of experience possible. So, Strawson is here discussing the thesis that space is a necessary condition not only for any objective experience, but also for any objective reality."
"It is worth noting that sounds are here just the means to the end of investigating an ontological claim about space and time. Strawson is not making an empirical claim in the philosophy of perception about the nature of hearing in human beings. Nor is he making an ontological claim addressing questions like: are sounds individuals? are they events? are they properties of sounding objects? Rather, he is building up a thought experiment aimed at testing the metaphysical claim according to which the notion of space is necessary for any conception of an objective reality."
Schrimshaw, W. (2013). Non-cochlear sound: On affect and exteriority. In M. Thompson & I. Biddle (Eds), Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (pp. 27–43). New York: Bloomsbury Academic.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 09/01/2014, 10:03
Following Deluze and Guattari, Scrimshaw claims the equivalence of sound and affect.
Scruton, R. (2009). Sounds as secondary objects and pure events. In M. Nudds & C. O'Callaghan (Eds), Sounds & Perception (pp. 50–68). Oxford: Oxford University Press.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 07/02/2014, 14:10
Sounds are "secondary objects and pure events"
"we do not attribute the secondary qualities of sounds to the bodies that emit them, nor to events that occur in those bodies"
A secondary object is "an object all of whose properties are ways in which it feels"
For Scruton, sounds are secondary objects because they are "a real part of the objective world" and not a mere "subjective impression"
With an Aristotelean conception of substance, an event is described by the objects taking part in it and the changes undergone by those objects as the event occurs. Thus, such a view of events is that they are "transformations undergone by particulars"
A pure event does not happen to any thing, it "cannot be reduced to changes undergone by reidentifiable particulars"
Our natural inclination to describe sounds in terms of their source "is not essential to the identification of the sound"
"The physicalist view banishes to the margin those features of sound that make sound so important to us, not only epistemologically, but also socially, morally, and aesthetically. In particular, it does not recognize the 'pure event' as a distinct ontological category, and one that introduces unique possibilities of communication."
Scruton uses examples and explanation of sound grouping/streaming (cf Bregman) to support his view of sounds as pure events because such auditory grouping needs no "bridges to the physical world" in the way that visual Gestalt figures do.
"pure events contain within themselves the principles whereby they can be ordered ... all without stepping into the order of things.
Secondary qualities are the way things feel -- not primary qualities that are physical and can be objectively measured. Secondary qualities allow us to discriminate between phenomena such as sounds.
Scruton supports his view that sounds are separate from the objects that emit them with examples such as radio and recording -- acousmatic sound. In such a case, sounds can be grouped (streamed) together coherently without reference to their physical origin.
To Scruton, sound's independence from the physical world leads to a coherence (grouping, streaming) that is a 'virtual causality'. It bears no relation to the process by which sounds are formed.
Sterne, J. (2012). Sonic imaginations. In J. Sterne (Ed.), The Sound Studies Reader (pp. 1–17). London: Routledge.   
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 13/05/2016, 14:30
"Does sound refer to a phenomenon out in the world which ears then pick up? Does it refer to a human phenomenon that only exists in relation to the physical world? Or is it something else? The answer to the question has tremendous implications for both the objects and methods of sound studies."
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