![]() ![]() Being an invention of simplicity and imagination, this whistle played an important role in understanding humanity about hearing. Since its inception in 1876, the Galton whistle is still in use today. One of these early experiments combined the Galton whistle and Titchener's sound cell to study differences in ear sensitivity to sound (Ferree & Collins, 1911). Despite its simplicity, the whistle was used in very complex and revealing psychological experiments. ![]() Early psychologists made design changes for the need for their experiments.Īt Harvard, Frank Patti invented a blower that could provide a steady, steady stream of air pressure through the whistle for an hour and a half. The Edelman Institute, one of the manufacturers of Galton whistles, added a diaphragm to the device to prevent an excessive blow (Ruckmick, 1923). The whistle itself has undergone several design changes to make sounds more accurate. The device was made with tables of vibration levels up to five digits. The Galton whistle was combined in psychological laboratories with acoustic instruments, tuning forks and other hearing aids. Galton's whistles were used to test hearing in reptiles (Kuroda, 1923), insects (Wever & Bray, 1933), hedgehogs (Chang, 1936), bats (Galambos, 1941) and, of course, rats (Finger, 1941 Smith, 1941 ) Further developmentĮarly comparative psychologists took crude methods of evaluating animals and refined them. Galton noted that natural selection led to better hearing for cats. He also liked to walk the streets and check which types of dogs could hear higher sounds (small dogs were better at this than large ones). After a reproduced whistle, he observed the behavior of individuals. Galton went to the enclosures at the zoo, used a long stick to stretch a whistle to the animal. He attached the whistle to a long pipe with a rubber ball on the other end. To his early tests, he adapted a new device to test the hearing of various animals using the sound of ultrasound. Reportedly, the author was very pleased to demonstrate this experience on older people. He also noted that the ability to hear higher frequencies decreases with age. Galton was able to determine that the normal upper hearing limit of a person is about 18 kHz. The scientist and subsequent researchers used these whistles to create increasingly high-frequency tones to test subjects of study, as well as the ability of animals to hear different tones. The book "Requests for the Human Faculty and its Development" in 1883 described some of the pioneering studies that the inventor conducted with a whistle. ![]()
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