How can loudness be changed

Set your volume to the lowest possible setting and hit Play. While the tone plays, observe the sugar or salt granules on the paper. What do you notice about the granules? Are there any changes? If so, what are they? Each time you increase it pause to observe the sugar or salt. What do you notice? Have the granules changed? In what way? Continue to increase the volume, observing any changes to the sugar on the paper.

Important: Keep your speaker volume within a comfortable range. If the volume starts becoming uncomfortably loud and you still do not see any changes, see the first "Extra" step below for tips. What effect does increasing the volume have on the sugar or salt? What do you think is causing this change?

When you see an effect on the sugar or salt, try pausing the tone and then restarting it. When the tone stops, what happens to the granules? What about when you restart the tone? Why do you think the tone has this effect on the granules? Do you notice any patterns in how the granules behave when the tone is playing?

Pause the tone and reset the sugar or salt so that it is evenly spread across the paper again. Set your phone back to the lowest volume and change the frequency of the tone that you are playing to a higher frequency. Repeat the activity, slowly increasing the volume for this new tone.

How is the new tone different? Does it sound higher or lower? Perception 22 , — Kanizsa, G. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Reprints and Permissions. Perception of changes in loudness. Download citation. Issue Date : 22 April Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative.

This sound can be changed, however, by altering the vibrating mass of the glass. For example, adding water causes the glass to get heavier increase in mass and thus harder to move, so it tends to vibrate more slowly and at a lower pitch.

What is Sound? When we hear something, we are sensing the vibrations in the air. These vibrations enter the outer ear and cause our eardrums to vibrate or oscillate.

Attached to the eardrum are three tiny bones that also vibrate: the hammer , the anvil , and the stirrup. These bones make larger vibrations within the inner ear, essentially amplifying the incoming vibrations before they are picked up by the auditory nerve.

The properties of a sound wave change when it travels through different media: gas e. When a wave passes through a denser medium, it goes faster than it does through a less-dense medium.

This means that sound travels faster through water than through air, and faster through bone than through water. When molecules in a medium vibrate, they can move back and forth or up and down. Sound energy causes the molecules to move back and forth in the same direction that the sound is travelling. This is known as a longitudinal wave.

Transverse waves occur when the molecules vibrate up and down, perpendicular to the direction that the wave travels. Speaking as well as hearing involves vibrations. To speak, we move air past our vocal cords, which makes them vibrate. We change the sounds we make by stretching those vocal cords. When the vocal cords are stretched we make high sounds and when they are loose we make lower sounds. Sound waves can only travel through a solid, liquid or gas.

When an object or substance vibrates, it produces sound. The bigger the vibrations, the greater the amplitude and the louder the sound. A microphone converts sound energy into electrical energy in the form of electronic signals.

A computer or an oscilloscope can be used to display these electronic signals, which show the same changes in amplitude and frequency as the sound waves.

When these signals are observed on the oscilloscope, the oscilloscope pattern will indicate the same changes in amplitude and frequency which correspond to the wave's loudness and pitch frequency.