Can a pitch be perceived outside the range where it can be heard?
In an example on the wikipedia section on Binaural Beats it says that two sine waves heard as separate signals, one in each ear, which differ by 10 Hz will produce the perception of a 10 Hz difference tone.
Is that possible? I had always heard the lower threshold of pitch perception was around 20-30 Hz. So 10 is right out, right? Or is the mechanism of (ap)perception not bound by the same limits as the sensory apparatus?
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If I tap my hand on my desk at 5Hz, I hear the taps, but they're perceived as individual events, not a sustained note. The perception of pitch emerges when events happen fast enough.
Here's a video about it, with a demonstration at the timestamp in the link :
So the answer to your question is basically "no". Pitches below the normal hearing range are heard, but not as pitches.
A 10Hz beat is not heard as a pitch, rather as a fluctuation of volume, but it is certainly detectable.
As a seperate topic, a low tone from, say, an organ pipe may not be directly 'heard', but our brains deduce its pitch from its harmonics, which ARE audible. We deduce 'A low-low C will have harmonics including the C above then G, then the next C, E...etc. I can hear THOSE notes, therefore there must be a low-low C'. And, perceptually, we actually HEAR the low note! This phenomenon is used in pipe organs to avoid the cost of immensely long pipes. www.pykett.org.uk/resultantbass.htm
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