Audio illusions

This is a discussion of how hearing works in certain situations. I was particularly interested in how the ear shape and placement assists in the determination of the direction of a sound.

 

Seeing sound

I've posted about sound and vision before with a 19th century Welsh singer's attempt to visualize sound, as well as a method to recreate sound from video by analyzing minute vibrations recorded. In this video an array of microphones acts as an acoustic lens to capture sound, which is then displayed on an image. This allows designers to study which components of a device are creating the sounds. He also demonstrates by showing the sound locations of an echo. 

 

Converting sound into an image via an eidophone

Click any image to enlarge

In my earlier post Reconstructing sound from a silent video we saw a method of reconstructing audio by observing the minute variations of a surface's edge caused by sound vibrations. In this post we see images made by sound vibrations.

Megan Watts Hughes was a 19th Century Welsh singer and scientist. She developed a machine she called an Eidophone which allowed her to create graphic captures of her singing notes by disturbing particles on a membrane. Some of the pictures are very striking.

These are taken from the Public Domain Review's post Picturing a Voice. There are more examples at the link, as well as a discussion of her eidophone and other early attempts to visually capture sound.