NEUROPSYCHOLOGY:
Language Affects Sound Perception
Charles Seife
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA--At the 140th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America here last week, a psychologist demonstrated that an auditory illusion based on the tritone--two notes a half-octave apart played together--is perceived differently by listeners with different linguistic histories. And those perceptions might help psychologists understand how the brain rewires itself during childhood.