Abstract

The origins of human sound sensation phenomena have remained an open question for a long time. Whereas recently pitch, loudness and combination-tone perception could be explained based on the nonlinear amplification processes in the cochlea, the human distinction between consonant vs. dissonant sounds is still unresolved. Here, we show at a fundamental level, how the nonlinear biophysics of cochlear sound processing also explains this phenomenon, matching the level by the best phenomenological theory. Our results reveal a cochlear origin of the phenomenon and an unanticipated role played by biological information processing parsimony.