Psychoacoustic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to the study of how humans perceive sound and interpret auditory stimuli
2. Pertaining to the scientific analysis of the psychological and physiological responses to acoustic signals
3. Concerning the investigation of the mental processing and interpretation of sound waves by the auditory system

Etymology: "Psychoacoustic" is a modern scientific compound, assembled from two Greek-derived parts: "psycho-", from Ancient Greek "psūkhḗ", meaning soul, breath or mind, and "acoustic", which traces back through Medieval Latin "acousticus" to the Greek "akoustikós", relating to hearing, from "akoúō", to hear. So the word literally joins the idea of the mind with the idea of hearing. The "acoustic" half has a long pedigree. Its Greek ancestor "akoúō" belonged to the same family of words as "akoē", hearing itself, and the adjective passed into Medieval Latin and then into English. The "psycho-" element is a much later addition, a combining form that English speakers attached to many words to mean "relating to the mind", so "psychoacoustic" describes the study of how the mind perceives sound rather than the physical properties of sound alone.

Synonyms: auditory perception, auditory